The people of Ireland have elected Independent candidate Catherine Connolly as their next Head of State.
Connolly, who was endorsed by Sinn Féin, the Irish Labour Party and the Social Democrats, secured 914,143 first preference votes in an election where an unprecedented number of ballot papers — 213,738 — were spoiled. Her rival, Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys, received 424,987 votes.
The former Labour Party member, who has served as an Independent TD since 2016, is expected to be inaugurated in St Patrick’s Hall, Dublin Castle, on 11 November.
Liberal agenda
The President-elect, 68, campaigned for the legalisation of same-sex marriage in the 2015 Marriage Equality referendum.
In a recent interview on Tipp FM, she defended the Gender Recognition Act, which allows people to change their legal sex. Since 2015, over-18s in Ireland have been allowed to change their legal sex merely by self-declaration. The law even extends ‘sex swaps’ to 16-year-olds, subject to parental consent and medical approval.
Connolly has also indicated she is in favour of a ban on ‘conversion therapy’. While the previous Government pushed back its plans for a new law, admitting that the process was fraught with legal difficulties, the new coalition declared in June that it would ensure that legislation “to ban conversion practices is enacted and commenced” by next year at the latest.
This was despite an official study in 2023 finding there was little or no evidence of conversion therapy in Ireland.
Sanctity of life
Connolly’s record on issues pertaining to the sanctity of life includes voting in 2018 to repeal the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment – a key legal protection from abortion for the unborn child.
One in six babies in Ireland were killed by abortion in 2024 according to the Department of Health, bringing the number of abortions recorded by the Government since the 2019 law change to around 55,000.
Last year, as TD for the Galway West constituency, Connolly also backed a report of the Joint Committee on Assisted Dying which recommended the Government should allow terminally ill adults to get help to kill themselves.
Ireland’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2024 has since stalled following the change of Government.