Liam Harbison, the popular and highly effective CEO of Paralympics Ireland is stepping down from his role to take up the position as Director of the Sport Ireland Institute of Sport.
The decision to take leave of Paralympic Sport was announced by President Jimmy Gradwell to a packed room ready to celebrate the Paralympics Awards in Dublin on Friday night.
It was a shock to many in the room who had benefitted from his stewardship as CEO over the last two Paralympic cycles especially through London and Rio when Ireland and Irish athletes made such a mark.
Harbison has been involved in Paralympics Ireland for 14 years, initially as performance Director and as CEO since 2008. He has engineered a previously unimaginable level of engagement and understanding for the sports involved, the athletes at the centre of the success and for disability in general.
Presenting Paralympians as elite sports men and women who have overcome their disability rather than simply been defined by it is an achievement that Harbison would recognise as having been a team effort but he was the person who brought the team together and fired the imagination of what was possible.
Returning from Beijing in 2008 he had with him a video show reel that ran to just over a minute but which captured some of the soaring potential of what the Paralympics were about. He brought that to people like Allianz Marketing Director Damian O’Neill who he saw as providing the crucial support that would lift the games and the athletes from a curiosity to the mainstream of sport.
When asked how much more content like that he could show, his simple answer was that ‘that was it’. So began a journey to lift the profile and bring the superhuman efforts of athletes like Mark Rohan, Michael McKillop, Orla Barry, Ellen Keane and Jason Smyth to a wider audience.
Eight years on and those stars are accepted as being among Ireland’s finest sporting heroes. RTÉ Sport broadcast live prime time coverage every night of the games from Rio this year and the Irish team was voted Sports Team of the Year at the People of the Year Awards on Saturday night.
Read more about RTE Sport coverage of the Paralympic Games 2016
Harbison has been central to that recognition. He gathered a fine team around him, from Dave Malone in performance to Patrick Haslett in Commercial and Sinead Naughton in Communications, all of whom played a key role but he was the touchstone, the leader who would role up his sleeves to mop up leaking accommodation in Brazil within days of securing Government support that ‘money should not be a concern’ for the athletes travelling out there.
He will remain in the role through to early 2017 before moving 100 metres across the national Sports Campus to take over the role of running the Irish Sports Institute vacated in the autumn by Gary Keegan.
“While sorry to be leaving the Paralympic movement after 14 great years and the many great people I’ve had the privilege of working with and for, I’m excited by the new opportunity and challenge of directing the Sport Ireland Institute,” said Harbison.
“I look forward to working with the Sport Ireland Institute and the National Governing Bodies to continue the great work in world class service delivery to Ireland’s athletes through to Tokyo 2020.”
The Institute is an important part of the Sport Ireland operation at the campus and Harbison will now work closely alongside Sport Ireland CEO John Treacy. The move must put him in a strong position to succeed Treacy when he steps down from that role in four years time after the current Olympic and Paralympic cycle.
“Liam joins Sport Ireland with a vast amount of knowledge and experience in high performance sport,” said Treacy speaking on the appointment yesterday.
“Since joining Paralympics Ireland, Liam has been responsible for the planning and implementation of high performance programmes along with overseeing organisational change which has seen Paralympics Ireland become one of Ireland’s most eminent sporting bodies.”
“Liam will work closely with Sport Ireland’s High Performance Unit in ensuring Irish athletes are afforded the best possible supports in order to succeed at the highest level and I look forward to Liam taking up the reins in the New Year.”
The end of an Olympic cycle always leads to a lot of change and that has extended beyond the Olympic Sports this year with the moving on in recent months of not only Harbison but also Gary Keegan and Dessie Farrell from his role with the gaelic Players Association.
Change is a natural thing and while there is always regret at the departure of someone at the top of their game, there must also be excitement at the opportunities that now present themselves to others to take up their successes and bring them onto a next level.
Harbison will face that challenge with poise and intelligence from February at the Institute. Whoever takes his place at Paralympics Ireland will doubtless do likewise.
