Death of distinguished public servant after short illness

The death has taken place in Dublin of the distinguished public servant, Dr T.J. (Tim) O'Driscoll. He was 90 this year and had been ill a short time.

A former director general of Bord Failte, first chairman of Coras Trachtala, a president of An Taisce, he served in five Departments and was briefly Irish Ambassador to the Netherlands.

He belonged to a generation of public servants who made a major contribution to the State. As he put it in an The Irish Times interview on July 16th, his birthday, "I was more involved in the development rather than the creation of the State".

He was born in 1908, the eldest of four children of Michael and Mary O'Driscoll. His father was a leather merchant and they lived at Sunday's Well. He attended the Presentation College before leaving Cork in 1928 for Dublin. He began work as an executive officer in the Department of Agriculture. Between then and 1948, he served in the Departments of Finance, Industry and Commerce, Defence, and External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs).

Early in this period, he attended Trinity College, where he studied for five years before obtaining a BA degree. "I didn't mind. It gave me more time to play rugby," he said. Rugby was always important to him. He started playing in Cork, then captained the Trinity XV in the highly successful 1934-35 season, during which they met and defeated six rival university teams. He was also captain of Lansdowne and played at interprovincial level for Leinster.

However, it is not for his sporting prowess that Dr O'Driscoll will be remembered. As assistant principal in the aviation division of the Department of Industry and Commerce between 1936 and 1940, and again in 1945, he was central to the development of Irish aviation and was involved with the building of both Shannon and Dublin airports.

This led to an involvement in aviation at international level. He was the Irish representative on the Permanent Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) from 1946 to 1948 in Montreal. He and his wife, Elizabeth (McKay, from Co Antrim, whom he married in 1941), and their family, Sara, Mary, and Liz (now the Democratic Left TD Ms Liz McManus), liked living abroad and he became Irish permanent representative to the Organisation for European Economic Co-Operation (OEEC) in Paris until 1950, when he became assistant secretary at the Department of External Affairs.

He was appointed first chairman of Coras Trachtala when it was set up in 1951 with the aim of stimulating Irish exports in dollar countries. After four years there, he became Irish Ambassador to The Hague in 1955, but resigned within a year to take up a post as director general of Bord Failte. It remains the role he is most associated with, which is hardly surprising as he was in the job for 15 years, from 1956 until 1971.

He was responsible for encouraging the building of many big hotels in the State. He set up the Tidy Towns Competition and promoted marketing abroad as one of the main functions of Bord Failte. He was soon extensively involved with international tourism bodies which culminated with his receiving national awards for services to tourism from Greece, Spain, Italy, and Denmark. In 1970 he was the first recipient of the United Dominions Trust Gold Award for the most significant contribution to tourism in the decade 1960 to 1970.

On retiring from Bord Failte in 1971, he became executive director of the European Travel Commission, a post he held until 1986. In 1971, he was also elected chairman of An Taisce. He was also chairman of the Irish Board of Algemene Bank Nederland when it became the first continental bank to open a branch in Dublin in 1972. He was president of the ROSC exhibition in 1971, and became vice-chairman of the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1974.

Reflecting on his busy life, he said: "Stress. I've read about it and all the reasons for it, its possible cures and so on. But I must say it has passed me by." He enjoyed life, he said. "I've had a great time.....I've always been an optimist."