President opens first conference at convention centre

THE CONVENTION Centre Dublin has staged its first international conference. It was opened by President Mary McAleese on Saturday evening.

An estimated 1,600 delegates from more than 40 countries are attending the European Dialysis and Transplant Nurses Association/European Renal Care Association conference, which continues until tomorrow afternoon.

President McAleese described the €380 million building as a “wonderful facility” which would host many such conferences.

The President is the patron of the Irish Kidney Association. She told delegates that the nature of dialysis was such that nurses got to know their patients very well and she praised those who dedicated their lives to dealing with the problems of kidney failure.

The conference was secured for the centre by an international bidding process and the work of the local organising committee.

The president of the dialysis and renal care associations, Anastasia Laskari, said delegates were very pleased with the facility though there was a few audio difficulties on Saturday.

“Our delegates are very happy,” she said. “It is a brand new building. The whole layout is good for a conference like ours”.

Local organiser Fiona O’Sullivan from Custom Ireland said the association described Saturday’s opening as the best it had had to date.

The theme of the conference is education and innovation in renal care. One of the most anticipated talks is likely to be by Frank Simonis who heads a company in the Netherlands which is developing a “wearable kidney” using nanotechnologies.

The ambition is to replace the hugely time-consuming process of hospital dialysis with a machine that a patient can wear instead. It is hoped the technology will be ready by 2014.

Mr Simonis, the chief executive of Nanodialysis BV, will deliver his talk tomorrow morning.

Conference centre chairman Dermod Dwyer said international buyers attended the conference at the weekend with a view to booking ahead for clients who were examining the venue as a future location.

“Now that the conference centre is open, many of the options are converting to firm bookings,” he said. “It is much easier for that to happen for them to see and feel how it is going on.”

When asked if the centre would ever make a profit for the taxpayer, Mr Dwyer said events such as the current conference were worth millions to the Irish economy and there were 100 events booked in before Christmas.

“We have the strongest pipeline of bookings for any conference centre which has opened anywhere in the world in the last 10 years,” he said.

“We have built it to such a high standard that we have the team objective to have this acknowledged as the best conference centre in Europe by 2014.”