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OUTGOING TD FOR Carlow-Kilkenny Malcolm Noonan is the sole candidate being put forward by the Green Party in the upcoming Seanad election.
Voting in the Seanad elections will open on 15 January, via postal vote, and ballots will be counted on 30 January.
There are 60 seats up for grabs across a number of different panels. Of these, 49 senators are elected and 11 are nominated by the Taoiseach.
The 11 Taoiseach nominees will undoubtedly form part of government formation talks, which are ongoing, and it is not yet clear what way they will be split up among government parties.
Nominations from Oireachtas members for the vocational panels in the Seanad will close today, 31 January at midday. This is known as ‘inside nominations’, as they are nominations from within the Oireachtas.
‘Outside nominations’, nominations from organisations and bodies outside of the Oireachtas, closed on 18 December.
Here’s who the main political parties are putting forward via inside nominations:
Fine Gael will be putting forward 13 candidates via inside nominations.
Among them are three outgoing senators: Garret Ahern, Alan Farrell and Mary Seery Kearney.
Eight councillors are also being put forward by the party: Conor Bergin, Laois; Vicki Casserly, Dublin Mid-West; Noel O’Donovan, Cork; Mark Duffy, Mayo; Mike Kennelly, Kerry; David Fitzgerald, Kilkenny; Carmel Brady, Cavan; Cathal Byrne, Wexford.
The other two nominees from Fine gael are John McNulty, who unsuccessfully contested this year’s general election in Donegal, and Leonora Carey, former chair of Fine Gael’s National Executive Council.
Carey unsuccessfully stood in Clare in this year’s general election.
Meanwhile, Fine Gael senator Seán Kyne, who previously said he was quitting politics, has reversed his decision and will seek a seat on the cultural and educational panel.
Fianna Fáil has not yet confirmed how many candidates it will be putting forward via the inside nominations.
Outgoing senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee is among the Fianna Fáil nominations on the Cultural and Educational panel.
Senator Niall Blaney, who unsuccessfully stood in the European elections earlier this year, is also listed as a candidate for the Agricultural panel.
As mentioned above, outgoing TD and junior Minister for Nature Malcolm Noonan is the sole candidate being put forward by the Green Party. He is seeking a seat in the Agricultural Panel.
Two other candidates, however, Hazel Chu and Ossian Smyth, are seeking election for the party in the University of Dublin panel where senators are chosen by Trinity College alumni.
The Green Party’s five existing senators, including Pippa Hackett, Pauline O’Reilly and Róisín Garvey are not seeking re-election.
Garvey had been a Taoiseach nominee in the last Seanad, but it is understood the Green Party does not expected to receive any nominees from the Taoiseach this time around.
Sinn Féin has nominated six candidates to contest the Seanad elections, including outgoing TDs Chris Andrews and Pauline Tully.
The other three candidates are Joanne Collins, Maria McCormack, Nicole Ryan and Northern Ireland Minister Conor Murphy.
The Labour Party has nominated four candidates to stand for the vocational panels this time around.
All four nominees are councillors: Nessa Cosgrave, Angela Feeney, Laura Harmon and Darragh Moriarty.
Meanwhile, Sadbh O’Neill, a well known environmentalist who unsuccessfully contested the general election as a Labour candidate, is running for the party in the University of Dublin panel.
Existing Labour senators Rebecca Moynihan and Annie Hoey are not seeking re-election.
The Social Democrats are running just two candidates – Patricia Stephenson, who unsuccessfully stood for a Dáil seat in Carlow-Kilkenny and councillor Joan Hopkins, who unsuccessfully stood for a seat in Fingal East in this year’s general election.
Michael Collins’ party Independent Ireland is putting forward one candidate.
Galway Councillor Noel Thomas will contest the election for a seat on the Agricultural panel.
Likewise, Aontú is putting forward just one candidate with Cavan councillor Sarah O’Reilly contesting a seat on the Agricultural panel.
Among the list of notable Independent candidates seeking election is disability rights campaigner Ann Marie Flanagan who has been nominated to run for the Administrative panel by Independent Living Movement Ireland and the Irish Deaf Society.
Biologist, author and presenter Éanna Ní Lamhna is also contesting a seat this year having been nominated by An Taisce for the Cultural and Educational panel.
Adrian Cummins, chief of the Restaurants Association, will also contest a seat on the Commercial panel.
Meanwhile, Eileen Flynn, who made history in 2020 by becoming the first woman from the Traveller community to take a seat in Seanad Éireann, is also seeking re-election.
Two of the panels – the University of Dublin panel and the NUI panel – have their members elected by university graduates. Three senators are elected to each of these panels.
The full list of who is running in the university panels is available here.
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Please no Chu or Zappone.I cannot bear the pain.
should be abolished. perfect example of unfair system, not elected by the people. chancers and profiteers!
@Dominic Leleu: We should be doing a lot more voting if we’re to get anything done. Our political class are failing us.
@Dominic Leleu: it went to a referendum and the people voted to keep the Seanad
@Johnny Wilson: We voted no because we don’t want it abolished. We voted no, because we want it reformed and made a more equal process. Given they are paid from the public purse, then the public should get to vote. As it stands, it’s just another chance to get another pension from riding the gravy train.
Reform please. Make it democratic
This consolation prize for rejected election candidates should have been scrapped when we had the chance but Enda Kenny said it was necessary for oversight & like fools people believed him. We deserve everything we get.
@Matt D: I think it would be better to reform it than to scrap it.
@Matt D: I think it’s beyond frustrating that ppl roundly rejected by the people saunter in to a cushy senator role. Ann Rabbitte and co prime example.
@Sea Spirit: Anne Rabbitte would be a real two fingers up to the electorate…….. After her academy award winning hysterics in the district court I thought Hollywood would come calling
@Matt D: I couldn’t agree more, can’t believe we voted to keep the Seanad when we had the opportunity to get rid of this body for failed TDs. We need a massive overhaul of our political system, 100 TDs at the maximum, get rid of the Presidency and Seanad, and more power for local councillors
@Matt D: It was Enda who gave us a vote to abolish it. We blew it – not surprising when you see such ill informed comments here.
@Matt D: No, I wouldn’t think so. There is a reason why many governments have 2 houses of representatives. Maybe reform it, and how it’s members are selected, but scrap it, no.
@Brendan O’Brien:
Exactly Brendan, have a proper election, no Taoiseach or uni picks. Sick of nepotism and teachers pet politics. No bloody token appointments, either. Reform the council of state while we’re at it.
Conor Murphy, Chris Andrews, Mary Seery Kearney, Alan Farrell, Ossian Smyth, Hazel Chu, Joe Flaherty & Anne Rabbitte, all reasons why we need to have another Referendum on the Seanad. People who have already been rejected by the people at the General Election, some repeatedly & some whose support of criminality & murder & aren’t fit for public office. I voted to remove the Seanad in the last Referendum, we need another one as it doesn’t represent the wishes of the people. Candidates appointed by University Alumni & the Govt, basic €76K + add on’s salary for contributing nothing. The attendance record is shocking, another drain on working Taxpayers. As for the article, when did Sean Kyne join Fianna Fail or did FF & FG merge overnight.
@SV3tN8M4: Add the Pope’s boy there Ronan Mullen .
@Gerry Campbell: Rónán Mullen topped the poll in the NUI electorate every single time he’s run since 2007. There are plenty of bad examples to use of failed politicians being appointed to the Seanad because they are party loyalists, but Mullen isn’t one of them. He actually had a proper career before entering politics which is rare these days.
@Frank O’Hara: Rónán faught the Mná, and the Mná won. A throwback charicature to McQuaid’s oppressive Catholiban regime.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: I don’t know what that has to do with it. I’m simply stating facts that Ronan Mullen topped the NUI electorate every time that he’s run for election. In any case, no doubt you opposed Mullen’s efforts to ban sex-selective abortions in Ireland. Did you know that 95% of all sex-selective abortions take place on unborn babies that are girls? Not very supportive of women now, are you?
@Frank O’Hara: No, he’s a church loyalist defending paedophiles and attempting to keep Catholic Ireland alive and well.
@Brian D’Arcy: Maybe ye should hire him in Sinn Fein to handle the plethora of Paedo’s pervading your party, the Church & Sinn Fein always sanctimonious & shouting from the Ivory Towers, whilst riddled with Paedophiles.
Tom Clonan a much needed Voice for those with Disabilities
Conor Murphy has no business being anywhere near the Senad. Let’s review:
Convicted for possession of explosives and membership of the provos. Defamed a murder victim, ignored the victims parents pleas for 13 years. Found guilty of religious discrimination. Didn’t warn a charity his press officer mcmonagle was under investigation. Breathtaking incompetence with ppe procurement during covid. Dodged the follow up inquiry due to health reasons but is now fully recovered…
@honey badger: https://irishpeaceprocess.blog/2024/05/14/conor-murphy-ira-bomber-criminal-border-smuggler-serial-liar-innocent-victim-defamer/
@honey badger: Well worth a read. Anyone going to refute it’s contents?
@honey badger: one odious individual
@Vincent Alexander: Why would anyone dispute facts? Interesting to note that the author is a former bomb maker for the IRA.. served 14 years for sending letter bombs.
People choose different paths.
The author also writes a piece on the ‘good’ IRA, and shielding Nazis after WW2, all the way up to Dev himself… well worth a read, one might say. Of course, there’s probably enough time passed for you to dismiss the roots of the establishment parties, their violence, and being Nazi sympathisers… which ironically led to Yann Goulet setting up the PIRA’s connection to Libya and Gaddafi… Ya see when you scratch underneath the surface you find all sorts of parallels and connections between the two IRAs of this country… It’s only the cherry-picking but but brigade that likes to ignore facts.
@Vincent Alexander: Very unlikely, unless it’s to point at something that has zero relevance to Conor Murphy being unfit for the senad…
@Brian: Also a good read. I was around in the 50s and saw to dire poverty in the country, thanks to Dev mainly and the brave freedom fighters who had no plan B for post independence. The 60s saw a change for the better. The RoI progressed but the DUP and SF destroyed the North.
@Johnny Wilson: who? Badger.
@honey badger: Oh contraire my dear little cherry picker.. context isn’t a word you understand.. unsurprising given your penchant for hysterical agenda driven drivel posts .. as you were ya auld codger x
@Johnny Wilson: Among many .The neck of Sinn Fein to produce the likes of him to the Seanad electorate make a mockery of it…of course its only a few weeks since they sent Sean Hughes “the surgeon ” to sort out their Laois problem,sleepless nights in the Midlands for a few knowing someone who British intelligence actually gave a nickname to was coming to see them ,and people still think that they are fit to govern.
Why are candidates not listed as independents or party nominees on the ballot paper?
Looks like the usual moaners would prefer no Government at all. A lazy way of looking at life and in countries where this wish has come true we get death, poverty and destruction.
“What does the Seanad do?
The main function of Seanad Éireann is in relation to legislation. A Bill may start life in either the Dáil (the Lower House of the Oireachtas) or the Seanad.
The Seanad may propose amendments, reject or pass a Bill. The Dáil has the power to over-ride the Seanad’s rejection of a Bill.
The Seanad has other functions, which it shares with the Dáil, such as:
The removal from office of the President or a judge of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal or High Court
Declaring a state of emergency
Annulling statutory instruments”
@thomas molloy: Boring
@thomas molloy: when does most of this happen ?
Great country.
You don’t get elected.
Then you get a job 75k a year plus.
Sure why not.
This is Ireland jobs for the boys.
And over 4K children homeless in this country.
Every TD and Senator in this country should be ashamed of themselves.
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