Senator Ivana Bacik has been re-elected in the Trinity panel in the Seanad on the sixth count, with 3,963 votes.
She was deemed elected following the distribution of William Priesley’s votes after his elimination on the fifth count. Her surplus of 202 votes will now be distributed
Bacik – a Senator since 2007 – took the second seat on the panel, after long-serving Senator David Norris was elected on the fourth count earlier today. Senator Lynn Ruane, the other incumbent, looks likely to reclaim the third seat with 3,229 votes.
Hugo MacNeill, the former rugby international and boss of Goldman Sachs Ireland, is currently fourth with 2,299 votes.
Speaking to The University Times Bacik said: “I am honoured and delighted to have been re-elected to the Seanad by the graduates of Trinity College.”
“I commit to continuing to work hard to represent them through the current terrible public healthcare crisis and for the lifetime of the next Seanad”, she added.
Bacik is Reid Professor of Criminal Law in the Law School, and is also a former president of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU). She takes the Labour Party whip in the Seanad, and is a long-time activist with the party.
Bacik is well-known for her involvement in the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment as far back as her days as TCDSU president, when the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children attempted to have four TCDSU sabbatical officers – including Bacik – imprisoned for providing information on aborton services.
Norris is the longest-serving senator on the panel, while Ruane was elected to the Seanad in 2016 while serving as TCDSU president.
Bacik and Ruane are the only two women who ran in the Trinity constituency.
MacNeill, who won 37 caps for Ireland, currently works with the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities. Last year, the Irish Times reported that MacNeill was a member of Trinity’s controversial all-male society the Knights of the Campanile.
Polls closed at 11am on March 31st, with the count currently taking place in the Dargan theatre in the Trinity Business School. The size of that theatre allows for social distancing to be observed while the count is taking place.
Trinity’s website says that the count is expected to go on until Friday.
