Vincent Hickey, the new chairman of the Irish Property & Facilities Management Association, might well have been expected to announce special celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the organisation when he addressed the annual meeting in Dublin last week.

Instead he surprised his audience by indicating that his priority will be to invest in new technology to facilitate further education and learning through the internet.

“It is important for us to reflect on our purpose and our structure at this point and we intend to do this over the next couple of months.”

The organisation plans to screen educational seminars online as a follow up to the training programmes organised over the past two years with the help of Government funding. Further grants of €98,000 have been approved following its Skillnet training courses last year.

Hickey’s day job keeps him busy: he is operations director of Aramark, the multinational services company which acquired Irish Estates a few years ago. Over the years he has spent much of his time monitoring the operation of office blocks in the IFSC. He has seen how education has opened a new world for many students. Now it is the turn of the property managers.