Labour leader Ivana Bacik (56) has defended her 2021 byelection victory by holding her Dublin Bay South seat in the general election. A four-term senator for Trinity College Dublin, former professor at the university, and lawyer, she first came to public prominence more than 30 years ago when she campaigned for abortion rights as a student leader. She was also vocal in the marriage equality and the Eighth Amendment referendums.
From Dublin, she lives in Portobello with her husband and their two daughters. She ran unsuccessfully in the 2004 European Parliament elections, before being elected to the Seanad for the first time in 2007. She also ran in the 2009 Dublin Central byelection, and in the 2011 election in Dún Laoghaire before her 2021 byelection success.
Elected party leader in March 2023, she had a bruising first year with low party morale, but a strong election campaign and her focus on housing being “the civil rights issue of our generation” has improved the party’s fortunes.
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