Niall Watters Email & Phone Number

Houses Of The Oireachtas

In this role, Niall works in the Legislative Analysis Service of the Oireachtas Library and Research Service (L&RS) as lead on Pre-Legislative Scrutiny (of proposed legislation) for Oireachtas Committees. He is also the lead Senior Researcher on the development of a Post-Enactment Scrutiny of legislation within the L&RS. Niall is project lead for the GIS services within the L&RS including the Constituency Dashboards using Census data.

Dublin

Niall worked as a social science/social policy researcher in the Library and Research Service (L&RS) of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The Oireachtas L&RS is responsible for delivering information and research services to support the work of both Houses (Dail and Seanad), Committees and individual Members in respect of their parliamentary duties. Niall's central role in the L&RS was as part of the Legislative Analysis Service within the L&RS.

Dublin

In general, his client and project work revolved around the following: research, social research, (social) policy analysis, evaluation, facilitation, specialist research and data analysis training, strategic planning and community consultation.

Dublin

Niall became Director of Research Services at the Unique Perspectives Group in 2008 following a company restructuring. In addition to the core Social Research function, this role included responsibility for research activities across all aspects of the company and its subsidiaries. This work included commercial/market research, customer/user profiling, as well as research for PR clients. In addition to leading and carrying out social research therefore, he also undertook a number of commercially oriented research assignments related to wider work with clients. Clients during this period included (in addition to those in social research – and listed in the publications/project section below) Jackie Skelly Fitness (now Energie Fitness), Glaxo Smith Kline, Xtravision, Hennessy, Bord Bia, Irish Contract Bridge Association, Hidden Hearing and Vodafone.

Dublin

As senior research consultant with the Unique Perspectives group, Niall had overall responsibility for all socioeconomic, social policy, government, and non-profit sector clients/projects. This included the overall management and coordination of research projects and assignments; staff management and co-ordination; relationships with clients (one or more of statutory, community and voluntary); leading field research; designing the research process; secondary literature and policy context analysis; research findings and analysis; report write up; strategy development; promotion, conferences and public presentation; and, review of current policy developments and recent research. A profile of the work carried out during the period, as well as the various clients, is listed below under the publications/projects section.

Dublin

This was a role associated to that of Director of Research Services with the Unique Perspectives Group (see position above). Scribble was a subsidiary of that company which focused on marketing, advertising and PR in respect of children and family consumer products. Niall led the research aspects of that work as part of a small team within Unique Perspectives. Research projects carried out included two nationwide representative omnibus surveys of 14 to 19 year olds. The first, ‘youth insight’, covered a wide set of topics and life styles trends and the second, ‘mobile insight’, focused in particular on digital mobile technology uses and trends. Clients during this time included Vodafone and Xtravision.

Dublin

Niall became Manager (CEO) of Co-operation Fingal following on from the Development Officer position in the late nineties. This period corresponded with the development of the Partnership to be a sustainable and progressive social inclusion project, incorporating improved governance, the employment of staff and the development in 2000 of the influential North Fingal Social Inclusion Strategy in response to the Local Development Social Inclusion Programme. The responsibilities of the position included: overseeing the general day to day management of the programme; initiating new project work in relation to identified needs and the parameters of the social inclusion programmes and its target groups; liaison with the Chairperson and members of the board of directors; developing and implementing governance and human resources policies; liaison with of Pobal (then ADM); staff supervision and motivation; programme planning and implementation; core financial management; ongoing interaction with project promoters and clients/service users; public relations and communications; performance management and strategic reviews/evaluation; liaison/negotiation with key statutory personnel and agencies; interactions with community/voluntary agencies and groups, representing the organisation at relevant meetings; recommending/contracting consultants; chairing various committees and working groups and participation in the county development board and its working groups.

Niall's entry position with Co-operation Fingal was that of Development Officer. The duties of this role included programme development, consulting/assisting with proposed projects, financial budgeting and administration. The overall aim of the position was to develop the programme from an embryonic stage into a fully operational local development/social inclusion organisation. During this period, I also became involved in the network of social inclusion programmes, their committee and working groups and liaison with Pobal (ADM) and Government Departments.

Dublin

Following his return from a year and a half in the US, post university, Niall was employed as a Research Officer within DCU’s Community Enterprise Office in 1997. The primary role was to work with one of the local area partnerships in conducting research on the nature and extent of early school leaving among ‘at risk’ young people.

Dublin

Assisting community development work with various groupings in the area and animating new ones while on placement as part of Masters in Community Development at NUI Galway.

Doctor Of Social Science

Ma, Community Development

Ba, Sociology, Political Science & History