Phil Ní Sheaghdha

General Secretary of The Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Ireland

Phil is a trained intensive care nurse and general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO). She has worked as an ICU nurse in Ireland, Australia, the UK, and Memorial Sloane Kettering in New York, following training in Dublin and London. She began work for the INMO in 1998, later completing an MA in industrial relations and a Higher Diploma in employment law. She was Director of Industrial Relations from 2008 until 2018 when she was appointed general secretary. As general secretary, she has overall responsibility for the organisation, leading on INMO’s advocacy on national nursing policy and through various public sector pay agreements. In 2019, she led the organisation’s first strike in two decades – winning pay increases and staffing improvements for nurses and midwives. She is one of the Vice Presidents of ICTU Ireland’s trade union federation and Co-chair of Ireland’s Emergency Department Taskforce. She is currently an Executive Council member of the European Federation of Nurses and a representative of the European Federation of Public Services Union.