Some 17 candidates are to compete for the Trinity seat in the upcoming Seanad bye election.
The Provost announced the list of candidates vying for the vacancy this afternoon in Trinity’s Global Room.
Abbas Ali O’Shea, the director of AFA, a consultancy firm targeted at students, will contest the race. He is an advocate for minority communities in Ireland.
Labour Party representative for Laois Eoin Barry will also run. Barry is a social worker and family therapist in child and adolescent mental health.
Ray Bassett, a former diplomat and political commentator is vying for the seat, alongside former Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu. Chu is running independently, as is Tom Clonan, a gender equality and disability rights activist. Clonan has run twice for the Seanad in 2016 and 2020.
Also running independently is Maureen Gaffney, a psychologist, consultant and author. Former rugby international and disability advocate Hugo MacNeill will also contest the race.
Entrepreneur and owner of The Elms Home & Living furniture company Aubrey McCarthy will run. McCarthy is the chairman of Tiglin, an organisation which operates mental health and addiction rehabilitation centres.
PhD student Michael McDermott is contesting the race. McDermott ran for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union President and Editor of The University Times in 2018.
Patricia McKenna, a barrister and former MEP, is also vying for the seat, along with Ryan Alberto Ó Giobúin, a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology. Ó Giobúin’s research concerns sociological inequalities in educational outcomes.
Barrister Ade Oluborode announced last month that she would run. Oluborode is a committee member of the Climate Bar Association, Comhshaol. She has previously worked in academia, medical and biotechnological research, real estate, financial services and the public sector.
Former Green Party councillor Sadhbh O’Neill will run as an independent candidate.
Ursula Quill is a PhD candidate in the School of Law, focusing on the Citizens’ Assembly and deliberative democracy. She was a secretarial assistant to Ivana Bacik for four years while Bacik was a senator and is a vice-president and former auditor of the College Historical Society.
Counselling psychologist Paula Roseingrave, who received over 2,000 first-preference votes as a Green Party candidate in the 2020 general election, is standing as an independent candidate. She told the Gorey Guardian that her decision to run was partly driven by the need for more women in politics.
Trinity Graduate Students’ Union President Gisèle Scanlon will run, as will Catherine Stocker, a Social Democrat councillor in North Dublin.
Ballots for the election will be posted to registered voters on February 25th 2022. The closing date for the return of ballots is March 30th 2022.
The bye election is to fill the seat of former Trinity Senator Ivana Bacik, following her election to the Dáil last year as a Labour TD.
