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A swing to Sinn Féin made this election a much smoother run for the party’s Fingal TD Louise O’Reilly (46) who had been seen to be in a fight to retain her seat.
A poor showing in the local elections with the loss of councillors in the constituency had been expected to have some impact. But the surge in support and the candidate’s own high profile as a dynamic, articulate and hard-working TD will have helped.
She played a leading role in the debates on the CervicalCheck controversy, most recently looking in forensic detail at the independent review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists into the scandal.
A second-generation trade unionist, her work led to her being selected as the Sinn Féin candidate for Dublin Fingal in March 2015, despite the fact that she did not have a background in representative politics.
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Before her career as a TD, she was a full-time trade union organiser and a member of the public services committee of Ictu.
Based in Skerries, she is married with one daughter.
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