HAVING SERVED AS a councillor for five years before becoming a TD, Aidan Farrelly felt he was well prepared for politics on the national stage.

That said, he was still taken aback by some of the feedback that came with the leap.

Speaking to The Journal as part of our series of interviews with first-time TDs, Farrelly said:

“The difference between a county councillor and a TD really was emphasised during the campaign to me. Like, Ivan Yates called me soulless and preaching – I’d never met the man. 

“I suppose that kind of hardened us in the campaign, to really try and win the seat.”

Farrelly, a first-time general election candidate in 2024, retained the Social Democrats’ seat in Kildare North that had long been held by one of the party’s founders, Catherine Murphy. 

On the night of his election, Farrelly had a bit of a full-circle moment when he appeared on a radio panel hosted by Yates. 

“I won my seat because of Catherine Murphy, my wife, my ma, the people of Kildare North, and that’s all I wanted to do. Ivan Yates didn’t really feature in that,” Farrelly reflects now, adding that he didn’t raise the comment with Yates when he did meet him. 

“I don’t hold it against him, he was doing his job,” Farrelly added.

“But it was just for me, as a councillor, that kind of stuff never would happen. My experience was that it didn’t really matter what party you were in, you had to work together to get things done.”

Farrelly said he has tried to bring this collaborative mindset with him into Leinster House. And so far, he’s found it works well. 

He pointed to Independent junior minister for the Office of Public Works, Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, as a Government TD who has been “really encouraging” and always had his door open. In particular, he had a positive experience working with him to get the access issue at Castletown House in Celbridge resolved.

As his party’s spokesperson for children, he has tried to build a positive working relationship with Minister for Children Norma Foley, too, speaking highly of what she is trying to achieve in the role. 

Before entering politics, Farrelly was a youth worker for 15 years, and he is now almost finished with a PhD in the area. 

He credits young people for getting him involved in public life. 

“I did an undergrad in social care in Carlow when I finished school, and I always had a bit of a mouth on me.

“I was always opinionated. And so youth work was a very natural home for me in terms of informal education and empowerment,” Farrelly said. 

Although he described it as the “best job in the world”, he would get frustrated when the same issues and barriers for young people and their families came up time and time again.

“I’d go home and I’d crib about it, I’d give out about it. And eventually, my wife just said, ‘Listen, you need to either stop giving out, or try to go in and actually do something about it’.

“I’d admired Catherine [Murphy]‘s work for so long, and so when the Social Democrats party started, it just made so much sense to reach out and see what was possible,” Farrelly said. 

On how he is finding the balancing act of being a TD, a dad, a husband and a PhD candidate, Farrelly said the person to answer that question is his wife, Aisling. 

“She’s a teacher, and I’ve got three phenomenal kids. Ella’s doing her Leaving Cert this year, Tadgh is 14, and then Killian is 10. So we describe our house as a bit of a train station.

“There’s always coming and going, there’s always bedlam, but it’s a beautiful place.”

On how well being a TD is suited for family life, Farrelly acknowledges that he probably has it handier than most, given that as a TD for Kildare North, he gets to sleep in his own bed every night. 

“My personal opinion on this is, I think how the week is structured makes little to no sense at all, certainly from a family perspective,” he said.

TDs are expected to be in Leinster House three days a week, Tuesday to Thursday, with sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday often running into the early morning. 

“I think there’s probably a much smarter way of doing it that’s more effective, because people’s brains at that hour even…It just doesn’t make sense in 2026,” Farrelly said. 

His proposal for improving things is for the Dáil to take fewer holidays. 

“There’s too many weeks where we are not sitting. And I think that, in and of itself, would alleviate some of the time pressures, if you just sat for more weeks and then pull back some of those hours.”

What’s been the highlight since becoming a TD? 

Farrelly points to the resolution at Castletown House and the State’s decision to purchase the land surrounding it as one of his main highlights of the last year.

“That issue just matters to tens of thousands of people. A million people went through the gates of Castletown, then for two years, that just stopped.

“So to get that back, and I’d like to think I played an important role in that process, was brilliant,” Farrelly said.

And the low point?

“The low point from a policy perspective is we’re just seeing situations get worse.

“And I suppose that willingness on my part to be collaborative and to work together, the biggest frustration I have is when what seems to be a logical or common sense amendment or solution or proposal just gets kind of beaten away out of hand simply because you’re in Opposition.

“I think it’s short-sighted, and I think it would ultimately serve people much better if there was more openness,” Farrelly said. 

He added:

And look, the opposition can be guilty of being just as critical, don’t get me wrong, but I think people want more teamwork.”  

What has surprised you about life as a TD? 

“It’s so slow. Like it is so slow, and it’s also reactive,” Farrelly said.

“I think that the pace of change, much like when you’re in a local authority, can be excruciating if you don’t have a lot of patience. And if Ivan Yates had called me impatient, I probably would have accepted it. That could be accurate.

“But also the reactiveness, I don’t think it is in the people’s best interest. We need to be much more proactive and strategic in our policy.  I’m surprised with the level of short-sightedness of government policy.”

He pointed to a recent Dáil exchange between Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns as an example of this.

Cairns was appealing to the Taoiseach to set up a State construction company to speed up the building of homes, but Martin’s criticism was that doing so would take two years to set up. 

“We’re not thinking in the long term, whether it’s about housing or climate or about better regional development. We’re only serving our own interests in the short term, not the people’s interests in the long term.”

• You can read our interviews with other new TDs in the 34th Dáil here.