Gay O’Connor has been awarded ‘Employee of the Year’ at the National Diversity & Inclusion Awards 2025 which recognises and celebrates excellence in Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) in workplaces across Ireland.
The awards, hosted by the Irish Centre for Diversity, took place recently in the Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road, Dublin and were judged by a panel of leading experts in D&I.
Gay who works in ICT Operation Support in SOLAS, the Further Education and Training Authority, was one of 6 finalists in her category and took home the prestigious award which recognises outstanding individuals and organisations that are creating positive meaningful change through D&I initiatives in workplaces right across Ireland.
Hailing from Swords, Dublin Gay O’Connor’s award win has put the spotlight on Gay’s tremendous contribution towards fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace culture in SOLAS. She has been instrumental in the development of a ‘positive action in the recruitment of people from Prison’ programme and has helped to drive forward the InHouse Harmony choir – an inside/outside choir whose members include men serving sentences in Mountjoy and employees of SOLAS.
In addition to Gay’s award, SOLAS also won ‘Public Sector Organisation of the Year’ at the Award ceremony – a recognition of their positive action on a range of D&I initiatives including staff training in Irish Sign Language, mental health, neurodiversity and unconscious bias, and a volunteering initiative with The Cavan Centre.
Commenting on her award win, Gay O’Connor said: “I feel unbelievably honoured to have won this award, it means so much to me. I have never loved anything as much as I love this work and I never ever experienced or understood about exclusion until I was part of these initiatives, it has changed me profoundly.
“I’m lucky to work with an excellent team at SOLAS who drive me to be the best I can be. I would like to say a big thank you to the team at SOLAS, especially to Caroline Jones for the nomination. None of this would be possible without her.”
Speaking about Gay’s impact, Caroline Jones, People Engagement Manager at SOLAS added: “The work that Gay does is above and beyond her everyday job and I have seen huge changes in Gay and her own sense of purpose. She has supported and mentored some of the men that we have recruited directly from Mountjoy and as a result has a much greater understanding of oppression, of exclusion, and of the trauma that is experienced by people both before and during their incarceration.
“She gives hugely of herself not only to our staff recruited from the prison but also to the other men in our In-House Harmony choir. Gay champions this work across the organisation and has fantastic support from her colleagues in IT. She is a shining light to all of us and a real instrument of change. She is also extremely humble and just does the job. She is amazing.”
SOLAS CEO Andrew Brownlee added: “We are absolutely thrilled that Gay has received this award, and it is real recognition of her unwavering commitment and passion to create real meaningful change in SOLAS. We are very proud to have Gay as part of our team, and her valuable contribution is supporting SOLAS to be recognised as one of the most progressive public sector bodies in Ireland.”
