Maureen O'Sullivan (politician)

Maureen O'Sullivan (born 10 March 1951) is an Irish former independent politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency from 2009 to 2020.^[1][2]

Maureen O'Sullivan
Teachta Dála
In office June 2009 – February 2020
Constituency	Dublin Central
Personal details
Born	(1951-03-10) 10 March 1951 (age 74) East Wall, Dublin, Ireland
Political party	Independent
Alma mater	University College Dublin

Early life

A native of Dublin's East Wall, she was educated locally at Mount Carmel school. After completing a BA at University College Dublin, she then went on to work as an English and History teacher and guidance counsellor in a secondary school in Baldoyle, a position she held for 30 years.^[3]

Political career

She was a member of Tony Gregory's local political organisation in the 1970s, first canvassing for him and later serving as his election agent. She was co-opted onto Dublin City Council for the North Inner City local electoral area from September 2008 to June 2009, after the retirement of Mick Rafferty.^[2] After the death of Tony Gregory, she won the resulting by-election which was held on the same day as the local elections where she also won a seat on Dublin City Council, for the North Inner City local electoral area. Marie Metcalfe was co-opted to take the seat due to the dual mandate rule.^[4]

O'Sullivan was re-elected to the Dáil at the 2011 general election. She joined the Dáil Technical group which gave independents and minor parties more speaking time in Dáil debates.^[5]

She described a proposal for political gender quota legislation as "tokenistic" and that women were able to get themselves nominated for election.^[6]

In December 2015, Maureen O'Sullivan and fellow independent TDs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace each put forward offers of a €5,000 surety for a 23-year-old man being prosecuted under terrorism legislation in the Special Criminal Court in Dublin charged with membership of an illegal dissident republican terrorist organisation.^[7][8]

After the 2016 general election she unsuccessfully stood for election as Ceann Comhairle. She joined a technical group aligned with Independents 4 Change, while remaining outside the Independents 4 Change party.^[9] O'Sullivan was criticised by the brother of late TD Tony Gregory, over an allegedly false claim made in her election literature.^[10]

On 16 January 2020, O'Sullivan announced she would not be standing in the February 2020 general election.^[11]