A “LEFT-WING” independent TD has defended his nomination of a Seanad election candidate who has previously been criticised for claiming governments across the world are enabling an “organised” LGBTQ+ “takeover” of society.

Sharon Keogan, who has been a senator since 2020, has been nominated for re-election by independent TDs Barry Heneghan, Gillian Toole, Mattie McGrath and Verona Murphy.

In 2021, Keogan made the remarks after it emerged that former Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, was to be appointed to a UN role despite the fact that the job was not advertised.

The independent Senator from Co Meath claimed on Twitter at the time that the “most worrying issue” about the scandal was that “governments worldwide” were trying to “catapult” members of the LGBTQ+ community “into high level positions”.

“One’s gender or sexuality shouldn’t be used for a seat at any table,” she said. “This is not equality, this is an organised takeover at every level in our society.”

She later told The Times newspaper that she had an “established record” in supporting and participating in “LGBT education programmes within my community” but was opposed to government “appointing personnel based on their sexual orientation”.

Documents relating to the upcoming Seanad elections detail that new independent Dublin Bay North TD Barry Heneghan, a self-described “left-wing” TD, has nominated the incumbent senator as a candidate.

Heneghan, who is a first-time TD, told The Journal that his nomination of Keogan, to the industrial-commercial panel, was due to her assisting him during his time as a councillor in Dublin city.

He said Keogan had raised a number of issues relating to housing, healthcare and disabilities with relevant departments while he was a councillor for the Clontarf LEA in Dublin.

Sharon Keogan pictured outside the Dáil in 2020. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

Asked about the criticism to Keogan’s previous remarks about the LGBTQ+ community, Heneghan said: “As an independent, I work with a wide range of people of different opinions.”

He added that he had just returned from the launch of the Vote With Pride Collective’s manifesto, a group promoting LGBTQ-rights in politics, and claimed to have secured commitments to ban conversion therapy and assist in gender-affirming care in the draft Programme for Government.

“I’m an independent and I am going to stand for what I stand for,” he said, adding that he plans to work towards improving Ireland’s housing, healthcare and disability services while in office.

“What I stand for is not represented in a lot of politicians I work with in the regional independent group,” claiming he joined the group for the “greater good” of his constituents. 

“I stand with the LGBTQ+ community. I ask the public to judge me by my actions over the next five years.”

The Journal has also previously debunked online posts by Keogan that falsely claimed children were being trafficked to Co Mayo, that misleadingly attributed statistics to claim that Dublin had the ‘worst homelessness’ levels in the world, sharing the #IrelandIsFull hashtag alongside it, and that incorrectly claimed that asylum seekers in Co Westmeath received a “free home“.

The hashtag #IrelandIsFull is commonly used by anti-immigration and far-right agitators. Heneghan said he had not known about her previously using the hashtag and that it was the “first time” he had heard about the matter.