Thirty candidates in race for Seanad NUI seats

Thirty candidates are challenging for National University of Ireland (NUI) Seanad seats in a race transformed by the retirement of Feargal Quinn after 21 years and the decision of oncologist John Crown not to run again.

Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop is seeking to become the first woman elected to the NUI panel for 35 years, a place then held by Gemma Hussey who went on to become a Fine Gael minister for education.

One of eight women on the list of candidates for this year’s election, O’Malley-Dunlop is not slow to point out the absence of women, even though 57 per cent of Irish graduates today are female.

O’Malley-Dunlop finished up last year as chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. During her 10 years there, she worked closely with politicians on the Sexual Offences Bill and the Victims of Crime Bill.

Despite the general negativity towards politicians, she was impressed with the way all-party committees of TDs and Senators “really do leave their political hats outside the door” to deal with legislation.

A political novice, Arklow solicitor Deirdre Burke decided to run for the Seanad when she realised it was “just impossible to make change from the outside. You have to be on the inside”.

“You talk to colleagues and you go to national conferences. You’re talking about it, but not really doing nothing,” says Burke, who works with the consequences of family breakdown every day.

Mental health services

Six years ago, Burke set up the Guardian Children’s Project, which offers mental health services and supports to families hit by breakdown, bereavement and domestic violence.

“The frustrating thing is that the first people who called on our services were the HSE,” she says, adding that the help offered in Arklow is needed throughout the country.

“Unless the child and family are under the care of the HSE, there is no facility for supervised access. It falls back on family members who don’t have training and in many cases the relationship is lost.

Alice-Mary Higgins, the daughter of President Michael D Higgins, has taken leave of absence from her job in the National Women’s Council to run for the Seanad.

A graduate of NUI and Trinity, she previously worked on Older & Bolder campaigns for retaining the State pension and protecting homecare and with development agency Trócaire.

“I’ve really avoided engaging on that,” she says when asked about her links to Áras an Uachtaráin. Her election literature studiously avoids making a connection.

Unlike some others, she is a fan of the much-criticised Oireachtas committee system, saying it offers the chance of shaping and changing legislation. Legislation must be equality-proofed, she says, pointing to the 37 per cent gap that exists between the average pensions enjoyed by men and women and the 14.4 per cent gap in pay.

She says EU legislation must be better examined. Three new directives on public procurement enter Irish law this month, but there has been “little or no public debate” on the rules governing the State’s €12 billion spend.

Housing standards

For outgoing Labour Senator Aideen Hayden the priorities are housing standards, supply, homelessness, vulture funds and curbs on the actions of receivers handling buy-to-let properties.

A Taoiseach’s nominee in 2011, she already had a nominating body to support her candidacy through the vocational panels, but wanted to stand through the NUI panel as an Independent. She is proud of her role in delivering a two-year rent freeze for tenants, though she says: “I would have liked to see rent linked to the Consumer Price Index. Homelessness and housing is the biggest national crisis.”

Outgoing Independent Senator Rónán Mullen is running again, as are company director Jerry Beades; former Ictu general secretary David Begg; entrepreneur Pádraig Ó Céidigh; entrepreneur Enda O’Coineen; clinical psychologist Paul D’Alton; GP Dr Martin Khare Daly; voluntary worker Máire Darker; lecturer Karen Devine; UCC governing body member Owen Joseph Dinneen; and university tutor Luke Field.

Also running are Fine Gael councillor and businessman Pearce Flannery; journalist Ross Golden-Bannon; former USI president Laura Harmon; policy analyst and community worker Rory Hearne; community affairs consultant John Higgins; journalist Carol Hunt; human rights campaigner Barry Johnston; and communications consultant Christy Kenneally.

Other candidates include senior counsel Michael McDowell; economist and law lecturer Daragh McGreal; hospital consultant Michael Seán Molloy; barrister Paddy Monaghan; clinical psychologist and mental health advocate Eddie Murphy; director of the Irish Seal Sanctuary Brendan Price; and planner and commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Kieran Rose.

Polls for the university panels close at 11am on Tuesday, April 26th.