Political commentator Ray Bassett has announced his intention to run in the upcoming Seanad bye election.
The former diplomat’s campaign will focus on independent foreign policy, defending national interests and improving relations with Britain.
Bassett said in a press statement that he is running independently with the aim of “keeping the university seats out of the control of the political parties or their surrogates”.
He also promises to strongly defend free speech “from the growing level of intolerance for diversity of opinion in society”.
Bassett has written for the Irish Times, the Daily Mail and An Phoblacht. He has held senior positions within the Irish Diplomatic Service as Assistant Secretary-General, including Ambassador to Canada, Jamaica and the Bahamas. He was Head of the Irish Consular Service for five years and served as the Irish Government Representative in Belfast.
Bassett was also part of the Irish Government delegation to the Good Friday Negotiations and helped establish the Emigrant Support Fund for the Irish Diaspora and the Reconciliation Fund to foster better relations between the two main traditions on the island of Ireland.
The Seanad bye election was triggered after former Trinity Senator Ivana Bacik was elected to the Dáil in the Dublin Bay South bye election in July.
Two Trinity PhD students, Ryan Alberto Ó Giobúin and Ursula Quill, have also announced their intention to run.
Ó Giobúin is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology. His research concerns inequalities in education.
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.
Other contenders for the seat include former rugby international Hugo MacNeill, Social Democrats councillor Carly Bailey, former army captain Tom Clonan and President of the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) Gisèle Scanlon.
Clonan has run for the Seanad elections twice – in 2016 and 2020 – but never managed to secure a seat. MacNeill ran unsuccessfully in 2020.
The Green Party’s Hazel Chu is also considering a run.
Chu, who is the current chair of the Green Party and the former Lord Mayor of Dublin, is not a Trinity graduate, but candidates are not required to be Trinity graduates.
Fine Gael has confirmed the party will not have run a candidate, but is expected to support MacNeill’s campaign.
Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin said in September that they would discuss the issue of a candidate in the coming months.
