Mayo lecturer to contest Seanad elections

IN THE RACE Swinford native and NUI Galway Law lecturer Donncha O’Connell who is running in the Seanad Elections.

Mayo lecturer to contest Seanad elections


Anton McNulty

Two Mayo natives will be going forward for election to Seanad Éireann with the county’s current long-term Fine Gael sentator Paddy Burke joined by NUI Galway lecturer Donncha O’Connell in the election race.
However the two men will not be fighting it out for the same votes with Senator Burke contesting the election for a place on the Agricultural Panel while Mr O’Connell will be a candidate on the NUI panel.
The deadline for nomination by designated bodies and University members is closed while the deadline for nomination by Oireachtas members expires on March 21.
A lecturer in Law at NUI Galway and a human rights campaigner, O’Connell comes from a well-known family in Swinford and his mother Bríd is one of the Hughes’ from Westport. He will be one of 27 candidates seeking election to one of the three seats on the panel .
The 42-year-old has taught Constitutional Law at NUI Galway since 1993 and is the former Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. He served a term as Dean of Law at NUIG from 2005 to 2008 and has recently returned to Galway after a year spent as a Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
His campaign emphasises on a number of issues such as democratic renewal through constitutional and political reform, a progressive approach to human rights and equality and a rational and fair response to crime and criminal justice. He said that he favours reform of the Seanad including elections by universal franchise.
“It is bad enough that we operate university panels as a system of elitism within elitism, by excluding new universities - Limerick and DCU - and most IT’s, but when some candidates decide to avail of free postage for targeted mailings, at huge expense to the taxpayer, we really run the risk of turning the university constituencies into latter-day rotten boroughs. There is an opportunity to challenge this by voting for real change and not more of the same.”
Part of his campaign has been to embrace social network outlets such as Facebook to attract supporters and assisting those supporters who are not on the NUI Register of Electors. He is supported in his campaign by Mayo natives Bernard O’Hara and Mark Garavan of GMIT.
Senator Burke is the only Mayo councillor or sitting senator to be nominated by the designated bodies following the retirement of John Carty for the Upper House. Senator Burke has been a senator since 1993 but this may be his last term if his party holds true to its election promise and abolish the Seanad.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny is free to nominate eleven members to the Seanad. The voting for the three NUI panel members commences by postal ballot between March 21 and April 27 while the polls to elect the remaining 49 seats will close on April 26.