Laois County Council CEO John Mulholland has announced that he will retire from the role in June of this year.
Mr Mulholland will retire before the Local Elections later in the summer after almost a decade in the role.
He is from Galway City and is an engineer by profession having studied in UCG.
John started his professional career in Longford County Council and worked previously in Laois County Council in the early 1990s before moving to Carlow in 2001 as a Director of Services.
He then went to Kilkenny in 2007 in a similar role before returning to Laois as CEO in 2015.
Laois had no CEO for a year after Peter Carey stepped down back in 2014 – with Director of Services Gerry Murphy filling the role temporarily.
Mulholland was the Acting CEO of Kilkenny County Council at the time and was appointed in July 2015.
Laois will look back fondly at the nine years under the stewardship of Mr Mulholland.
One of his key projects was the decision to acquire and develop land that has become known as the Portlaoise Business Park.
In 2017, the Council purchased 80 acres of land from Pat McDonagh off Junction 17 at the M7.
It is now home to several businesses including Glanbia and Greenfield Global – employing hundreds of people.
The brand new Portlaoise Library was another key infrastructural project along with The Cube.
Speaking at the February meeting of Laois County Council, Mulholland spoke of his decision.
He said: “Looking back at my time, I would give it 9.5/10 in terms of the enjoyment I have had working in this county.
“I have decided to retire as I am long in the tooth and have other things that I want to do.”
With a very busy agenda in the Council today, CEO Mulholland requested that the Councillors move on with business rather than wishing him well on his retirement.
They agreed to this request and said that they would all pay tribute to him at a later date.
Mr Mulholland appeared on a LaoisToday Podcast back in 2021 where he gave a detailed insight into what his job is like.
“A sports and recreation campus for Portlaoise,” said Mr Mulholland when asked what would be a dream project if money wasn’t an issue.
“Given the huge amount of young people that have covered the county in glory – we see what happens with basketball and so on.
“People from here playing inter-provincial rugby at senior level and all the talent that there is in the county to be able to capture that and provide the facilities.
“I’m talking about a multi sport campus that would draw people in for events. It’s something that we looked at last year but the price was prohibitive. You mentioned €5 million for a library, you can multiply that by six, seven or eight.
“(But) what that is is an investment in young people in the county and I think that is very meritorious … that would be a very good day’s work for the county but we couldn’t do it by ourselves, we’d have to do it with others.”
Mr Mulholland never got the sports complex in the end but he will leave Laois in the summer with a legacy of progression and development behind him.
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