Tommy Cooke – Head of The Community Links Programme

Tommy Cooke is currently Head of the Community Links Programme in the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). He is by profession a Clinical Biochemist and his PhD research was in the area of Heart Disease and Stroke. He was a senior lecturer in DIT for 15 years and during this time worked for the Irish Government in Lesotho, Southern Africa and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is also very involved in community development issues and educational disadvantage. In 1996 he was asked to develop links between DIT and disadvantaged communities at home and abroad, leading to the development of The Community Links Programme.

He is Chairman of Pobal, the agency that manages programmes for Government with a social inclusion remit. Pobal currently works with 7 government departments, managing 17 programmes involving 4,500 groups throughout Ireland.

In addition he is a board member of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the government agency that funds and advises the Minister on all matters pertaining to the third level sector in Ireland.