Cllr Conway Walsh on course for Seanad

Mayo connections of candidates


Áine Ryan

ERRIS may not have a sitting TD but it is likely to have a representative voice in the upper-house of the Oireachtas as Sinn Féin Cllr Rose Conway-Walsh submitted her nomination papers at Leinster House yesterday (Monday). Given the strength of her party’s vote nationally, Cllr Conway-Walsh seems certain to take a seat in the Seanad elections on April 25.
Speaking to The Mayo News from Leinster House, Conway-Walsh said that the 7,853 votes she received in GE16 had ensured her name was put forward by her party to sit on the Seanad’s Agricultural panel.
“It is a privilege to be selected to go forward on the Agricultural Panel as I have a proven and particular interest in agriculture and fisheries, which this remit covers too. It is a long time since there was a senator from Erris and our plan is to deliver for rural Ireland, based on our policy document,” she said.     
Cllr Conway Walsh, along with outgoing Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, of Galway West, has been nominated by her party for the eleven-seat Agricultural Panel. This panel is one of five known as the Vocational Panels, whose electorate consists of TDs, outgoing senators and members of city and county councils. There are 43 positions on the five panels which also include: Administrative, Cultural and Educational, Industrial and Commercial and the Labour Panel.
Belmullet-based GP, Dr Keith Swannick, has already declared his intention to seek a seat for Fianna FΡil on the cultural and Educational Panel, heightening the Erris interest in the elections. Defeated General Election candidate and former Fine Gael Deputy Michelle Mulherin, meanwhile, has ruled herself out of seeking a Seanad nomination from her party. That is despite what has been described as interest in the party at local level in her seeking a Seanad seat.

Mayo connections
Seanad Éireann’s 60 seats also includes eleven nominees by the Taoiseach and three graduates of the University of Dublin and three of the National University of Ireland (NUI). Ms Ellen O’Malley-Dunlop, who owns a house on Clare Island, has successfully put a spotlight on the subject of sexual violence in Irish society during her ten years as Chief-Executive of Dublin Rape Crisis Centre,
O’Malley-Dunlop has gone forward under the NUI category. With gender balance issues among her priorities, she has highlighted the fact that it is 35 years since the NUI (National University of Ireland) elected a woman to the Seanad.
Other key priorities for Ellen O’Malley Dunlop are investment in every level of education from early years to third-level; reform of the mental health system; repeal of the Eighth Amendment and the inclusion of ‘a definition of consent’ in the law on sexual offences.
Castlebar native, Cllr William Lavelle, Fine Gael, who is a member of South Dublin County Council representing Lucan, is to contest the Seanad elections on the Industrial and Commercial Panel.
Cllr Lavelle was first elected to South Dublin County Council in 2009 and was re-elected on the first count in the 2014 local elections. He is the Leader of Fine Gael Group on South Dublin County Council
Born and raised in Castlebar, he attended Scoil Raifteirí and St Gerald’s College and is an architect by profession.
The General Election for Seanad Éireann, held under the Proportional Representation system of voting, must occur not later than 90 days after the dissolution of DΡil Éireann.