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THE DÁIL is… still on holiday. So we’ve been continuing to catch up with some of Ireland’s newest TDs to get their reflections on the job so far.
Today we hear from Fine Gael’s newest Mayo TD, Keira Keogh.
A behaviour consultant by profession, Keogh worked with neurodiverse children for 18 years before being encouraged to enter politics by MEP Maria Walsh.
Despite failing to get a seat when she ran in last year’s local elections, Keogh persevered and six months later won a seat in Dáil Éireann.
She spoke to The Journal about how difficult she found it to walk away from her career, having pro-Palestine protesters show up at a constituency clinic, and what it was like behind the scenes during the speaking rights row.
Keogh said for the most part, it has been.
She pointed to running her business and her involvement in Junior Chambers — an international organisation for people under forty interested in leadership and social responsibility — as useful experiences that lent themselves well to the unsociable schedule of a TD.
She added that while she anticipated the long hours, she didn’t expect the collegiality that she has experienced.
“I certainly didn’t expect to meet friends in this job. You hear it’s so difficult in politics, and it’s cut-throat, and it is all of those things, but I have found that there has been great support.
“Within the party, no question [that I asked] was too stupid in the beginning. Maybe it was different this time, because there were just so many new TDs, but that took me by surprise.”
Keogh said her career working with neurodiverse children was one of the primary drivers for getting into politics, and she believes it leaves her well-placed to advocate for children with additional needs.
Walking away from her business
“It was really difficult to walk away from my career. It really has been a passion for nearly 20 years,” Keogh said.
If she had been successful in the local elections, her plan was to run the business alongside the councillor work, but when she made the decision to run for the Dáil, she decided she would have to close her business.
“So there would have been a lot of tears from me and from my clients, because some of these kids I had worked with from even before they were two [years old] and some of them are now teenagers.
“You’re with families for a long time, and they depend on you. So that was difficult,” she said.
Keogh now sits on the Oireachtas Disability Matters Committee and is Chair of the Joint Committee on Children and Equality, so she sees this as a “full circle moment”.
Looking to her time ahead as a representative for the people of Mayo, Keogh said she believes disability issues and housing are the two main issues this government will be judged on.
For her personally, she is focused on the new therapy services going into schools and on getting younger people with disabilities out of nursing homes.
As reported by The Journal this week, more than 1,200 people under the age of 65 in Ireland are living in nursing homes designed for much older people.
“We have to have a forward plan on that,” Keogh said.
“We have to have a kind of one-door policy, where we’re planning ahead, where we understand who’s with their parents now and who’s going to need full-time support [in the future]. We also have to have emergency beds on standby for people who have accidents.”
She added that all new housing estates should be mixed-tenure, with some housing specifically for older people.
“Universal design is something I’ve brought up on a regular basis within the Disability Matters committee too,” Keogh said, referring to designing buildings in a way that makes them accessible to people regardless of age or disability.
She gave the example of building her new constituency office and issues she had trying to make it accessible for wheelchair users.
“I fought to get the wheelchair accessible toilet in, paying for that out of the [TD] allowance myself. But then the builder was like, ‘So we’ve put in a wide door for the bathroom, and we’ve put in a wide door for your office, and then the other doors are standard. ’ And I’m saying, ‘Well, no, all of the doors should be wheelchair accessible.’”
“And I think it’s something as simple as that, if we build all houses with that universal design in mind, anybody can use them. We start there,” Keogh said.
The importance Keogh placed on accessibility means her constituency office will only open next week, eight months after she was elected, something she said she finds “really disappointing”.
In the interim, she has been running her constituency clinics from hotels.
“I’ve also put in a changing table for parents of young children, because I’ve had people bringing babies to the clinics. I just think it’s important that people can access their TD in the easiest way possible,” she said.
Choosing Fine Gael
On her decision to run as a candidate for Fine Gael, Keogh said most people probably would have expected her to hitch her wagon to Fianna Fáil, given the fact that her late grandfather was the honorary local Cumann president.
Keogh would have thought of herself as more of an independent, but after meeting and becoming friends with Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh through Junior Chambers, things changed when Walsh encouraged her to enter politics.
“She said: ‘You don’t have to run for Fine Gael, but I think you should run’,” Keogh said.
Keogh was friendly with Fine Gael’s Mayo TD Michael Ring too and, after the encouragement from Walsh, had a conversation with Fine Gael’s candidate development office, who enrolled her in a first-time female mentorship programme.
“I did a deep dive then on the party, the values. I really liked its work on the marriage referendum and how pro-European it was, and I just took the plunge, joined up and told the whole family. Now they’re all members,” Keogh said.
What’s been the highlight?
“It’s really difficult to pick one,” Keogh said.
She pointed to her work on Oireachtas committees so far and a recent trip to the United Nations HQ in New York, but said the most satisfaction comes from being able to help a constituent with an issue.
Any lowlights?
“Yes, it’s still very vivid in my mind,” Keogh responded.
She pointed to her first month after being elected, when she was still in the process of hiring staff and finding an office.
Keogh had been appointed to the Dáil Reform Committee — the body that was responsible for dealing with the speaking rights issue that dominated the beginning of this Dáil term — and was getting to grips with this and the general admin of being a new TD when Storm Éowyn hit the country.
“I had so many constituents without power, without phones. I had, naturally, families of children who are autistic, ringing me.
“I found those seven to ten days when I was trying to onboard one staff member, get her up to speed, help people who were without their power and phone line, while also [being on] the Dáil Reform Committee, were a very steep learning curve,” Keogh said.
When asked what it was like inside the room of the Dáil Reform Committee’s meetings on the speaking rights row, Keogh said it was as contentious as it was within the Dáil chamber and noted that she found the leaks from the room to the media “very frustrating”.
One evening in particular when, during a Zoom meeting that was running late into the night, there was an argument about whether to take a break or continue the meeting for another two hours. The argument was tweeted “almost in real time” by a journalist, Keogh recalled.
“You’re in a room and you’re working really hard to try and find a solution, and some people are more interested in leaking to the press. I found that really disappointing,” Keogh said.
Gaza protests
Elsewhere, Keogh pointed to the ongoing situation in Gaza as the other low point.
“I’m someone who has worked with children my whole life and is horrified by what I’m watching on my screens.
“I find it difficult when maybe the people in your constituency, or general people in the public are so angry at you because they feel that you’re not doing enough, and you feel you’re trying to do your best, and it’s really difficult to explain your position on social media,” Keogh said.
“I had some people turn up for one of my clinics, and they had Palestinian flags, and they had some posters with my name on them, stuff like that. And they were really angry about one of the ways that I had voted,” she explained.
The vote in question was on a Sinn Féin motion to cease the Irish Central Bank’s role in approving the sale of Israeli State bonds within the EU.
“So I brought them into the office one by one, and I spoke to them for 15 minutes each. They’re still not happy with me, but I feel they understood my opinion a bit more,” Keogh said.
“They’re probably the two ‘pits’, and they’re massive,” Keogh said.
“Sometimes life is so busy as a politician. My motto is don’t celebrate the highs and don’t wallow in the lows, just focus on the day-to-day.”
Anything that has surprised her about the role?
“At the clinics, I’m really surprised sometimes how almost embarrassed some people are to come and visit their TD. They’re coming in and they’re apologising for taking up your time,” Keogh said.
“I think Irish people are still really proud, and don’t like asking for help and don’t like having to visit the TD, so that’s something that I was surprised about.”
“People took a big chance on me. The bookies didn’t give me a chance, the pundits didn’t give me a chance… So it was a huge, huge achievement to get elected, and that’s my biggest thing, thanking the people who gave me the opportunity.”
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