Clare Daly

Clare Daly MEP
Member of the European Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office 2 July 2019
Constituency	Dublin
Teachta Dála
In office February 2016 – July 2019
Constituency	Dublin Fingal
In office February 2011 – February 2016
Constituency	Dublin North
Personal details
Born	(1968-04-16) 16 April 1968 (age 53) Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Ireland: I4C  EU: GUE/NGL
Other political affiliations	United Left (2013–15) Socialist Party (1996–2012) Labour Party (until 1989)
Spouse(s)	Michael Murphy (m. 1999)
Alma mater	Dublin City University
Website	claredaly.ie

Clare Daly (born 16 April 1968) is an Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019. She is a member of Independents 4 Change, part of the The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL. She served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 2011 to 2019.^[1]

Daly was elected as a Socialist Party TD for the Dublin North constituency at the 2011 general election.^[2] Previously a Socialist Party Councillor for the Swords electoral area on Fingal County Council, she resigned from the Socialist Party on 31 August 2012, redesignating herself as a United Left Alliance TD.^[3]

Early life[]

Daly is from Newbridge, County Kildare. Her father, Kevin Daly, was a Colonel in the Irish Army and Director of Signals. She is a long-standing atheist, though her brother and an uncle are both Catholic priests.^[4] Daly studied accountancy at Dublin City University.^[4] She was twice elected president of the Students' Union and was active in the students' movement as a campaigner for abortion rights and information. On leaving college she took a job in the catering section of Aer Lingus on a low wage,^[4] and became SIPTU's shop steward at Dublin Airport when the airline was engaged in extensive cost-cutting and outsourcing.

Political career[]

Daly initially joined the Labour Party, where she was elected to the party's Administrative Committee as a youth representative. A member of Labour's Militant Tendency, she was expelled from the party in 1989 alongside Joe Higgins and other supporters of the faction.^[5] At first calling themselves Militant, in 1996 they formed the Socialist Party.^[5]

County councillor[]

Daly was elected as a Fingal County Councillor for the Swords area in the 1999 local elections. She was re-elected at the 2004 local elections and the 2009 local elections, topping the poll on each occasion.^[6]

In 2003, Daly was jailed for a month, alongside 21 others from the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign for breaching a High Court order preventing protests leading to obstruction of the council's non-collection policy for those not paying bin charges.^[7][8] in 2011, she announced that she would not register to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget, calling it "reprehensible", and telling Phil Hogan, the minister responsible, in the Dáil: "You can't bring everyone to court".^[9][10] She was an organiser of the Anti-Water charges campaign in Swords in 2014.^[11]

She first ran for a seat in Dáil Éireann at the 1997 general election, receiving 7.2% on that occasion and 8.2% at the 1998 Dublin North by-election. At the 2002 general election she received 5,501 votes (12.5%), narrowly missing a seat. At the 2007 general election she received 9% of the vote.^[6]

Teachta Dála[]

She was eventually elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2011 general election, taking 15.2% of the first preference vote.^[6][12] During the presidential election campaign later that year, Daly and Higgins committed themselves to support the nomination of independent candidate David Norris in his search for the 20 Oireachtas members necessary for inclusion on the ballot paper.^[13]

In February 2012, it was reported that she would introduce a bill to provide for limited access to abortion where there is “real and substantial risk to the life” of the pregnant woman, in line with the X Case.^[14] The bill was defeated before its second reading on 19 April 2012.^[15]

In 2012, Daly used travel expenses to cover expenses related to her attendance at anti-household charge meetings around the country. Daly said that legal advice was being sought as there was a lack of clarity around the issue and that she would refund any money that was used inappropriately.^{[16][17][18][needs update]}

In June of that same year, Daly refused to call for the resignation of her friend and political ally, Mick Wallace in the wake of his VAT controversy.^[19] It was reported by the Evening Herald that the United Left Alliance, of which the Socialist Party was part, were to confront her over this stance.^[20] Daly resigned from the Socialist Party on 31 August 2012.^[3] In a statement, the Socialist Party said "it believed Ms Daly had resigned because she placed more value on her political connection with Independent TD Mick Wallace than on the political positions and work of the Socialist Party."^[21] Daly described the claim as "absolute nonsense" and stated that she had not called for Wallace's resignation because the Socialist Party had not called for his resignation.^[22] She requested a share of the €120,000 Socialist Party's Leaders Allowance to allow her to continue to fund her activities as an Independent TD.^[23]

In April 2013, along with another TD, Joan Collins, she founded a new political party called United Left.^[24]

Following the 39th G8 summit, Daly accused the Fine Gael-Labour government of “prostituting” the country to US President Barack Obama and criticised what she described as media and political "slobbering" over his wife Michelle and their children during their stay in Ireland. She also called Obama a hypocrite and a war criminal for speaking about peace whilst using drones to bomb foreign civilians and wanting to supply weapons to Syrian rebels. Taoiseach Enda Kenny responded to her comments, saying they were "disgraceful" and "beneath you" and invoked the diaspora and to the victims of The Troubles since President Obama has supported peace in Northern Ireland.^{[25] [26][27][28][29][30]}

In May 2015, Daly's passion compared to that of others such as Micheál Martin and Gerry Adams during her questioning of Taoiseach Enda Kenny over the sale of Aer Lingus was remarked upon by media.^[31]

In November 2015, in the aftermath of the November 2015 Paris attacks, Simon Coveney of Fine Gael accused Daly of attempting to shift blame for the attacks from the perpetrators and onto France itself and other European countries following comments by Daly. Coveney stated: "The suggestion in this House that we should be looking at ourselves to blame for what happened on the streets of Paris is reprehensible. France has an obligation to defend itself.". Daly countered by criticising Coveney's willingness to send Irish Troops on to Mali as well as by stating "Reference has been made to France being better placed and France having a right to defend its citizens. “Precisely contradictory remarks were made when Russia engaged in the same reprehensible actions by bombing Syria in response to attacks on Russia. The West said Russia should not be doing that because it was endangering its citizens. That was correct for Russia but it is also correct for France".^[32]

In December 2015, Daly along with independent TDs Mick Wallace and Maureen O'Sullivan 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.^[33]

At the 2016 general election, she stood as an Independents 4 Change candidate in the Dublin Fingal constituency, and was elected.^[34]

Member of the European Parliament[]

Daly during her appearance in a promotional video released by the Popular Mobilization Forces, touting her and Mick Wallace's visit to their headquarters

At the 2019 European Parliament elections, she was elected for the Dublin constituency. She received a final total of 87,770 votes, or 11.6%, and took the third seat.^[35]

In December 2019, the London Times reported Daly had appointed her former husband, Michael Murphy, as a European Parliamentary Assistant. The rules in the European Parliament prohibit the employment of "spouses or stable non-marital partners". Daly previously employed the son of fellow Independents4Change MEP Mick Wallace. The Times described Daly as "one of the busiest Irish members in the European parliament this term".^[36] in September 2020 a former parliamentary assistant of Daly's, who had worked for her for over seven years, came forth to accuse her of mistreatment and of having "no respect for workers' rights".^[37]

In April 2021, Daly and Wallace were called "embarrassments to Ireland" by Fianna Fail's Malcolm Byrne after the two travelled to Iraq and visited the headquarters of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an Iraqi militia supported by Iran. Byrne said "These two MEPs visited a Shiite militant group that has lured gay people to their deaths. As if their support for Lukashenko in Belarus and Hezbollah in Lebanon wasn't not bad enough. They are an embarrassment to Ireland. Seeking to understand issues in a conflict is a good thing, not doing due diligence on a group in advance and allowing themselves to be used as propaganda tools is foolish". Video footage of Wallace and Daly was subsequently posted to YouTube by the Popular Mobilization Forces.^[38][39][40]

In April 2021, Daly raised concerns in the European Parliament about a report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the 2018 Douma chemical attack. Daly said that "an independent OCPW is absolutely necessary".^[41] Fianna Fáil’s Barry Andrews said "During this committee meeting, I am ashamed to say that two Irish MEPs used their platform to progress their conspiracy theory that the White Helmets staged an attack on the civilian population of Douma, Syria. Irish MEPs often work together on important files but I would like to express my revulsion at the likes of this disinformation. Until now, I have been quiet I stand against internal attacks on our democracy. I want to say, not in my name".^[42]

In June, Daly and Wallace were amongst 8 MEPs censured for acting as unofficial election-monitors in the 2020 Venezuelan parliamentary election and 2021 Ecuadorian general election without a mandate or permission from the EU. Individual politicians may travel to other countries to observe elections, but cannot do so under the guise of representing the EU while they do it. The EU does occasionally observe elections in countries around the world but such observations are large scale operations in which hundreds of observers are sent out and hundreds of polling booths are attended. The EU "blacklisted" Daly and Wallace for one year from making any other election observation trips under the EU banner. Daly and Wallace issued a joint statement in response that read: "These were not 'fake election-observation trips. We made abundantly clear by public announcement at the time that we were not visiting Ecuador or Venezuela with an official election observation mandate. Our decision to go was not influenced by the governments in question. Both of us have a long-standing interest in affairs in both countries and are vocally opposed to EU and US policy in the region. Although we regret that the Ecuadorian people did not choose Andrés Arauz as their president, we found the elections to be conducted fairly and impartially, and their results are beyond question. We renew our call on the EU to abandon its policy of foreign interference in Latin American democracies, and to respect the decisions of their electorates."^[43][44] Ecuadorian election officials complained that Daly could not be an objective election observer while openly supporting one side, such as Andrés Arauz, over the other.^{[45][verification needed]}

According to The Irish Times, Wallace and Clare Daly's positions caused tensions within The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL. Tensions boiled over when Wallace and Daly tabled amendments in the European Parliament on behalf of the Left group seeking to water down resolutions about Russia in relation to the shooting down by Russian backed militias in Crimea of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. 298 passengers and crew were killed in the incident, 193 of them Dutch.^{[46][45][verification needed]}

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Personal profile of Clare Daly in the European Parliament's database of members