Dublin (20 November 2012) – The Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global research and education institute dedicated to responsible land use and creating sustainable communities, has launched its 14^th European National Council in Ireland. The council, chaired by Hines Ireland’s managing director Brian Moran, will bring together ULI’s members in Ireland and provide them with a forum to discuss and address the challenges facing the country’s real estate sector.

The National Council was launched at a real estate capital markets forum event at the Bank of Ireland, House of Lords on 20^th November 2012. The event included a roundtable discussion between 30 senior professionals on the future of Ireland’s capital markets, which was be chaired by Marc Mogull, managing partner at Benson Elliott Capital Management.

Joe Montgomery, chief executive of the Urban Land Institute in Europe comments: “The creation of a National Council in Ireland is an important step in the expansion of the Urban Land Institute across Europe. The new council will provide our members with an arena for exchanging ideas and best practice on real estate, regeneration and urban development, as well as gaining access to ULI’s global network of knowledge and contacts.”

Brian Moran, Managing Director of Hines Ireland and ULI national council chair comments: “We have had an active and growing ULI membership in Ireland for some time now and being granted official National Council status will give us the opportunity to expand our operations and provide greater benefit to our members. We wanted our first official event to strike at the very heart of the challenges we face in Ireland and we are pleased that our capital markets forum provided a lively debate on the future of financing real estate development and investment.”

The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit research and education organisation supported by its members. Founded in Chicago in 1936, the institute now has over 30,000 members in 95 countries worldwide, representing the entire spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines, working in private enterprise and public service. In Europe, ULI has approximately 2,000 members in fourteen countries including UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

ULI’s National Councils act as country specific networks, bringing together a wide range of stakeholders from across the real estate sector to exchange experience and knowledge through events such as conferences, project tours and community outreach programmes. National councils provide an unbiased and non-partisan forum to discuss the key issues facing the industry and facilitate active dialogues between private industry and public bodies to help provide solutions to local and regional issues.

The National Council in Ireland will be overseen by an executive committee including:

• Brian Moran (chair), Hines Ireland
• Tom Dunne, Dublin Institute of Technology
• Niall O’Keeffe, National Association of Building Co-Operatives (NABCO)
• Enda Faughnan, PwC Ireland
• John O’Connor, Housing Agency
• Guy Hollis, CBRE
• Kevin Hoy, Mason Hayes + Curran
• John Bruder, Burlington Real Estate Limited
• Donald MacDonald, Hooke & MacDonald