Prior to taking up his current role, Colm was Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland. He led the organization during and played a central role in it's successful referendum campaigns to secure constitutional change to guarantee equal access to civil marriage, and to provide access to reproductive healthcare in Ireland. In his role at Amnesty International, he was centrally involved in the development and implementation of Ireland’s community sponsorship programme for refugees and was also one of the leads on Amnesty International’s global work on community sponsorship. Prior to his role with Amnesty International, he was the founder and former Director of One in Four, an NGO that supports women and men who have experienced sexual violence. Colm founded the UK chapter of the organisation in 1999 and established the Irish chapter in 2003. In his role at One in Four, he led efforts to secure justice for victims of historic sexual violence at the national and international levels and secured historic state investigations into child sexual abuse in Ireland. He has also served as a member of the Irish Senate, the upper house of the Irish Parliament, and is a bestselling author and a regular writer and media commentator on social justice and human rights issues.Colm is also an avid cook and writes a weekly cookery column in The Irish Examiner newspaper.