NESSA CHILDERS, who had been a Green Party councillor until a few weeks ago, is to seek a nomination to contest the European elections for the Ireland East constituency next June as a Labour Party candidate.
Ms Childers, daughter of the late president Erskine Childers, announced yesterday she had accepted an invitation from Labour leader Eamon Gilmore to join the party and planned to seek the nomination for Ireland East (formerly Leinster) at a convention expected to be held in November.
Ms Childers originally joined the Labour Party before the last local elections in 2004 but, when she failed to get a nomination to run for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council, she switched to the Greens and was elected as a Green councillor.
“Nessa Childers is a person of the highest integrity who I would like to see carry the Labour Party values into the European Parliament,” said Mr Gilmore.
“She has proved to be a competent public representative over the past four years. She brings to public life her very considerable abilities in academic life and in running her own private practice.”
Ms Childers said that, if selected, she would do her utmost to gain a seat for the Labour Party in Leinster. “I am a passionate believer in the European Union, like my father before me.”
Ms Childers is a psychoanalyst in private practice and the mother of two children aged 19 and 14.
