Kilkenny teacher takes up new national financial literacy role

Denis Carrigan from Ballyfoyle has been chosen as one of the country’s two inaugural financial literacy ambassadors

Published 26th Aug 2026, 20:30 BST Denis Carrigan speaking in his role with the CCPC Denis Carrigan from Ballyfoyle has been chosen as one of the country’s two inaugural financial literacy ambassadors Sign up to our Kilkenny Live newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Kilkenny Live within your account.

As part of Ireland’s inaugural National Financial Literacy Strategy, the country’s first ever financial literacy ambassadors were announced by Tánaiste and Minister for Finance , Simon Harris last month.

One of the two roles is being taken up by Ballyfoyle’s Denis Carrigan, and although there’s no existing blueprint for the position which will communicate key messages around finance, Denis certainly brings a wealth of experience which qualifies him for the task.

Also serving as the President of the Association of Home Economics Teachers, Denis has taught financial literacy during his time at Scoil Aireagail in Ballyhale where students developed a book on financial issues and later St Laserian’s Special School in Carlow by guiding pupils in setting up mini companies.

Denis, who was chosen as the Our Money, Our Future ambassador for the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ( CCPC ) to further bolster his credentials, believes that the move towards a cashless society has thrown up new challenges for young people in developing their relationship with money.

“Money is not physical anymore,” he says. “We might have a fond memory of going to the sweet shop with our few euros and counting out how many penny sweets we can have, but for kids nowadays, they have very little exposure to cash anymore.”

“A lot of kids might have a bank card or a Revolut linked to their parents’ account and a lot of schools now accept debit cards. If you don’t know what cash is, if you don’t see €10 disappearing, it’s not real to you.”

“If you don’t have a concept of what money is or trying to earn it and valuing it, I think especially for young people, that’s a problem,” he adds.

Despite this disconnect from previous generations in terms of how they view cash, Denis still firmly believes that young people retain a strong interest in learning about financial literacy and educating themselves on how to make the right decisions to help their futures.

“They hear about it a lot in the news. They hear about the cost of living crisis. They hear about affording a house etc and you know like any of us, we want to have our own house. We want to have our own freedom,” he outlines.

“We don’t want to live with our parents when we’re 40 or 50 years old. Kids want to be able to be financially independent. They want to know about money so that they can make the best choices and I’ve seen that.”

The unpaid position is expected to run to at least the end of 2027 and is part of an EU-wide initiative where each member state will appoint people to similar roles.

Denis and the other Irish appointee, Gráinne Griffin, will be travelling to Brussels in November to meet their continental counterparts who are still in the process of being established.

The duties and responsibilities of the role are yet to be ironed out as the pair are set to work with the Taoiseach in early September towards the goal of making their mandates clearer, but even so, Denis still has a vision of some of what he’d like to achieve while being the first to hold the position.

“However the meeting goes, my aim is to make it much more accessible. If you read any of these policy documents, national financial literacy strategies, any of these reports by them, the language is not accessible to the average punter on the street.”

“It’s used in business lingo, corporation lingo. It needs to be accessible to the average person on the street so that they can make better choices.”