Bernie McNally

Bernie Mc Nally was appointed Secretary General of the Department of Education in February 2022. The Department leads on primary and post primary education policy in Ireland and supports 4000 schools, 100,000 education personnel, and almost 1,000,000 children and young people. From 2015 to 2022, Bernie was an Assistant Secretary in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, where she led on the introduction of the second free preschool year, the introduction of the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) to support children with disabilities in preschool, and the development of the National Childcare Scheme to subsidise childcare cost for parents. Bernie was Director General of the Office of the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner from 2012 to 2015 leading out on numerous initiatives to improve transparency, openness and accountability within the public service. In her earlier career, Bernie was an Occupational Therapist and worked in both the UK and USA. She was Director of Therapy and Social Work services in St James’s Hospital, Dublin. Bernie has a BSc and MSc from Trinity College Dublin and an MBS from University College Cork. She has also completed a number of senior leadership programmes.