After 10 years as head of An Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, Michael Duffy is leaving to take charge of the RDS, reports Seán Mac Connell.
Mr Michael Duffy, the former head of An Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, is hoping his arrival as head of the Royal Dublin Society will not be as dramatic as his arrival at the food board nearly a decade ago.
Within months of becoming the board's first chief executive, he was plunged into a worldwide crisis when British scientists linked eating bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) infected meat with the human form of the disease, vCJD.
The resulting dramatic decline in beef consumption presented a major problem for the man whose job it was to promote and sell Irish food abroad.
"As soon as things began to come back to normal again, we landed into another crisis, this time when BSE was first identified as a potential health problem on the continent in late 2000. That led to the second major crisis with a huge drop in beef consumption there and this in turn lead to the Purchase for Destruction Scheme here.
"Then, almost immediately, we were into the foot-and-mouth crisis of March 2001, which created major difficulties for us as a food exporting country. There were major problems," he said.
Reflecting on those times during the week, Mr Duffy (50), said he remains in awe of the resilience of the food industry to adapt to whatever conditions and crises emerge.
"I have to say, too, that I probably had the best staff in Ireland; bright, able people who were prepared to work 24/7 to get our message across anywhere in the world," said Blackrock-born Mr Duffy, who will leave to take up his new posting in early May. He leaves behind an industry which has stabilised in terms of beef sales and has developed a major consumer and speciality foods sectors to complement the traditional exports from agriculture.
"It would be fair to say that the Irish food industry now has real scale and is really competitive and innovative," he said.
Mr Duffy, who was responsible for the brand marketing, "Ireland, the Food Island", said he believed that on the international stage the food board represented style with substance, a fair reflection of the Irish food industry.
While the Royal Dublin Society is unlikely to deliver the kind of national crisis Mr Duffy and his team have been coping with over the last decade, its future is not without controversy. In June 2003, the RDS lodged plans with Dublin City Council for a €100 million development over 10 years. The proposal includes extensive renovation of the Anglesea Stand, new office blocks on both sides of Simmonscourt Road and two new multi-purpose halls that could function equally well as stables or as business venues.
The proposed area of development covers five acres, a significant element of which will be relatively high. The office buildings will have between four and six storeys.
Opposition to the development is being led by a loose gathering of people calling themselves the Friends of the RDS, who, for a variety of reasons, do not want the development to go ahead.
Mr Duffy refused to be drawn into the controversy, which is likely to dominate his stewardship at the RDS from the minute he steps inside the door.
"It is far too early for me to say anything about the new job, except I am looking forward to it enormously," he said.