HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER and academic Maeve O’Rourke is to run in the Seanad by-election to replace Seán Kyne.

O’Rourke has become known for her campaigning work highlighting institutional abuse, mother and baby homes, and forced adoption, among other issues.

Her candidacy is expected to be announced on Friday, with voting to take place on 6 November.

While O’Rourke will run as an Independent, she has secured the backing of the Social Democrats and the Labour Party.

She told The Journal that she’s hopeful of obtaining others.

In the Oireachtas and the wider public debate, O’Rourke says, there is a need for informed legal analysis and human rights law, which she believes she can provide.

“I can offer a lot when it comes to seeing whether current interpretations of the law are the only way we can see things,” she said.

“I’ve spent the last 17 years engaging with politicians in all parties and independents in opposition and in government to advance justice for people affected by institutional abuse.”

O’Rourke is a co-director of Clann, a research initiative investigating and documenting the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children in 20th-century Ireland.

She said she’s passionate about amplifying victims’ experiences to show the public how society “is not always functioning fairly”.

The author of four books, her most recent is about the rights and treatment of older people.

O’Rourke was nominated for a Seanad run by the Law Society, the Irish Dental Association, and the Irish Association of Development Workers and Volunteers.

She is married to Labour Party TD Ciarán Ahern and is a daughter of former RTÉ broadcaster Seán O’Rourke.