Clare Daly

Clare Daly (2019)

Clare Daly (born April 16, 1968 in Newbridge , County Kildare ) is an Irish politician (until 2012 Socialist Party , 2013–15 United Left , since 2016 Independents 4 Change ). From 2011 to 2019 Daly Teachta was Dála des Dáil Éireann . Since the 2019 European elections , she has been a member of the European Parliament as part of the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left .

Life

Youth, training, first political commitment

Clare Daly was born on April 16, 1968 in Newbridge, County Kildare, to the daughter of Kevin Daly, Colonel in the Irish Army. After finishing school, Daly studied accounting at Dublin City University . Daly was already politically active during her studies, including twice elected chairwoman of the student association. She was also active in the student movement for the legalization of abortion .

After graduating, Daly began working in the catering division of Aer Lingus as a low-wage worker. During that time she was active as a SIPTU works councilor at Dublin Airport. Daly also joined the Irish Labor Party and was at times its youth representative. In 1989 she was expelled from the Labor Party along with Joe Higgins and other supporters of the so-called “Militant tendency” on charges of undermining the party with Trotskyist tendencies . She later joined the newly formed Socialist Party .

Initially, Daly was active for the party at the local level: in 1999 she won a mandate as a councilor for County Fingal for Swords . She defended her mandate in the 2004 and 2009 elections, each time as the first to vote.

Teachta Dalá (2011-2019)

At the same time, Daly tried several times in vain to win a seat in the Dáil Éireann : She ran for the 1997 parliamentary elections and received 7.2% and 8.2% in the by-election in the course of the year. In the 2002 parliamentary elections she received 5501 votes (12.5%) and just missed a mandate. In the 2007 parliamentary elections she received 9% of the vote. Daly was ultimately elected to Dáil Éireann in the Dublin-North constituency in the 2011 general election, where she received 15.2% of the first preferential election, which was enough for one mandate.

A year later, on August 31, 2012, Daly resigned from the Socialist Party. The party accused her of placing more emphasis on working with the non-party Teachta Dála Mick Wallace than on the party's position. Then Daly was initially independent until they founded the new party United Left in April 2013 with the Teachta Dála Joan Collins . The party existed until the end of 2015, when Daly joined the Independents 4 Change party with other supporters .

In the parliamentary elections in 2016 she ran as Independents 4 Change candidate in the Dublin Fingal constituency and was able to defend her mandate. With her, Independents 4 Change won three more mandates as part of the Right2Change alliance.

Entry into the European Parliament (from 2019)

Clare Daly together with her long-time colleague Mick Walles in the European Parliament (2019)

In April 2019, Daly decided, together with her colleague Mick Walles, to run as an independent candidate for the European elections. Above all, the increasing importance of the European Union on Ireland in times of Brexit motivated the two.

In the election, Daly won one of the four mandates in the Dublin European constituency with 11.6 percent of the preferential votes. Together with Mick Walles, who also won a mandate in the European constituency of Southern Ireland, both joined the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left . For the group, Daly is a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and a deputy member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism .