Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, TD, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality and Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht with special responsibility for Equality, New Communities and Culture and Drugs Strategy, visited the RCSI Institute of Leadership on Wednesday, 25 November to meet with MSc Leadership postgraduate students.

His presentation focused on leadership from an educational and political perspective and was followed by an interactive question and answer session.

Speaking after the presentation, Dr Samantha Doyle, programme participant said: "It was a great opportunity to hear Minister Ó Ríordáin's experience from an educational setting. His ‘Right to Read Campaign' is an example of leadership to challenge poor literacy rates in disadvantaged areas."

Sinead Roche Moore, programme participant, commented: "The MSc Leadership programme is an inter-professional group and Aodhán's presentation highlighted distributed leadership theory and its' relevance across so many different areas of practice."

The MSc Leadership programme is taken over a two-year period and consists of 47 senior healthcare professionals from various organisations

In July 2014 Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD was appointed as the Minister of State with responsibility for New Communities, Culture and Equality with a brief spread across both the Department of Justice and Equality as well as the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

Aodhán was first elected a TD in February 2011 having previously served as a member of Dublin City Council from 2004. Prior to his appointment as a Minister of State he served as Vice Chair of the Committee on Education and Social Protection and a member of both the Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform Committee and the Good Friday Agreement Implementation Committee. He served as Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin in 2006.