YESTERDAY WE CAUGHT up with Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney on her experience of being a first-time TD, today we hear from the Labour Party’s Conor Sheehan. 

At 32 years of age, the Limerick City TD is one of the youngest representatives in the Dáil. 

He talks us through the highs and lows, adjusting to hotel living and how he sometimes feels like he’s talking to a brick wall.

Is life as a TD what you expected?

“In ways it is and in other ways it isn’t. I’ll never forget the first time I stepped into the Dáil chamber. Sometimes I pinch myself when I’m sitting there during one of the week’s set pieces like Leaders’ Questions or whatever.

“The thing that struck me was actually how small the chamber is and how small the campus is as well. How often you bump into people the whole time.”

Pit and peak

Sheehan said he has had “many highlights” so far. Notably, being on the panel for temporary chairs for the Dáil, which means he is sometimes called on to sit in as chair of the Dáil when Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy is not available.

Other highlights have been working on legislation. 

“It’s really interesting, you know, doing committee stage in the chamber, and listening to the amendments,” he said.

“The delay in getting committees set up and everything like that was quite frustrating,” Sheehan said, adding that from a legislative perspective, the Dáil really only kicked into business in the last six weeks.

He said at the beginning of the term, he felt like a huge amount of the Dáil schedule was dedicated to statements on a variety of topics, a move he feels was done to “pad” the schedule because there wasn’t much legislation coming through from the government. 

Sheehan said he finds it frustrating at times, as an opposition TD, to see government TDs vote down opposition bills or amendments and instead come back with a reply that is “generic blather”.

“The thing that really annoys me is when you go in and you do a private member’s motion, or you do a debate or whatever, and it’s almost like sometimes the minister is coming in to read a pre-prepared reply and isn’t actually engaging with you on the substance of the issues you are raising.

“Now, some ministers are better at that than others, but some are very frustrating. You just feel like you’re talking to a wall.”

Low point?

“The low point for me was all the crap that happened at the start of the year, around the recognition of the technical group and as to whether the [Regional Independents] were in government or opposition. It was totally unnecessary.

“The whole thing was unedifying… I thought it was a waste of everyone’s time, and I don’t understand why government were so insistent — Like they’ve created this other members’ questions thing at the moment, which is almost like eight minutes of tumbleweed blowing through the Dáil chamber,” Sheehan said. 

Is there still animosity between the opposition and government since then?

“I think there is some bit of animosity, but I do think that things are thankfully no longer as tense as they were in the early part of the year,” Sheehan said, arguing that this is probably down to the fact the Dáil was busier in its last few weeks.

“Sometimes when you’re in a vacuum, things can have a bit of an undue significance.”

At 32 years of age, Sheehan is one of the youngest TDs in the Dáil. How is he finding the career change from that perspective?

“The first thing I’d say is there are far too few young people in politics, right?

“I would be friendly enough with some of the other younger politicians, there would be people across different parties that I would be very fond of.

“People like Mairéad Farrell in Sinn Féin. She’s great. Keira Keogh in Fine Gael, really, really, great. Just decent people that you can talk to about issues.

“There’s an awful lot of people who think politics is just constant hand-to-hand combat, but it’s actually not like that. An awful lot of the time, you disagree with people on certain things, but you’ll agree with them on other things. And I always believe in finding common ground.”

On the commute from Limerick, Sheehan opts for the train over driving so that he can get some work done, but he said this means he does a lot of “pulling and dragging”. 

“I’m used to it now, but people always slag me when they see me in Leinster House, because I always have a big, huge suitcase.

“I feel like I should have shares in Irish Rail at this stage. I drove a couple of times, coming down late on a Thursday, leaving Leinster House, snaking onto the Naas Road and just being like uh, when will I actually get home?”

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Sheehan said what he found tough initially was sleeping in hotels.

“I would go to bed in a hotel and 10 o’clock would become like one or two am, and I would literally be wide awake in bed and not able to sleep.

“I would just feel out of sorts. Too hot or too cold, or it would be too loud, or I could hear footsteps. All very much first-world problems, but I did find that stuff, until I got into a routine, a bit tough. Whereas now I’m totally used to it.”

Another aspect of the gig Sheehan said he finds tough is trying to maintain a healthy diet.

“You’re constantly eating on the go, and it’s not the most healthy lifestyle in the entire world,” Sheehan said, adding that his diet since becoming a TD has consisted of “a lot of chips”.

“One of the things I do miss when I’m in Dublin is just being able to cook your dinner.

“Because I’m currently in and out of hotels in Dublin, I suppose I don’t get that. But I love the job. It’s really been such an enormous honour and privilege.”

What I wish I knew

Sheehan said the biggest thing any first-time TD has to be careful of is making sure they pace themselves, both mentally and physically.

“The thing about Leinster House is that the working hours are mad. I’ve often arrived in on a Wednesday morning around 8 am to get maybe an hour’s work done before a committee meeting or a briefing at nine, and then I am still there that Wednesday evening at 10 or 11 o’clock at night.”

Sheehan said it is rare to finish up any earlier than this on a Tuesday or Wednesday when the Dáil is sitting.

“I remember one Wednesday, about six or eight weeks ago, we got out at twenty past nine, and I felt like I’d had a half day.”

Any surprises?

“The amount of people in a similar situation as myself trying to figure everything out. And the amount of decency that’s in the Oireachtas.”