Incumbent Senator and Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology Ivana Bacik has been re-elected to the University of Dublin panel of Seanad Éireann with 4,144 votes. During the campaign, Bacik, who has served as senator on the panel since 2007, highlighted her history as a legislator and her connections to Trinity.
Bacik was elected on the thirteenth count, her 4,144 votes exceeding the quota of 4,017 votes.
Incumbent Senator David Norris was also re-elected to the panel late last night, receiving 4,070 first preference votes, 25.4 per cent of first votes. Both candidates emerged as the front-runners early into the count yesterday, yet it took Bacik longer to reach the quota of 25 per cent and one vote.
The race for the final seat is now contested by Sean Barrett and Lynn Ruane, at 2,502 and 2,480 votes respectively. Barrett lagged behind both Ruane and Averil Power until the eighth count when transfers from Sean Melly’s votes gave him a 34-vote lead on Power but only a seven-vote lead on Ruane.
In 2011, Bacik was elected to the TCD panel on the eighth and final count, receiving 19.16 per cent of first preference votes with 2,982 – the second-highest number of first preferences, after David Norris.
Bacik, a Labour senator and an associate professor in law in Trinity, served as President of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) from 1989-90. During the campaign Bacik emphasised her connection with the College and education. Speaking to The University Times in March, she described her battle against a ten per cent increase in fees during her time as President as “one of the issues that first really politicised me so I’ve always been against the idea of a student fee and for the idea that you pay for education through taxation at all levels”.
Speaking on Vincent Browne last week, Bacik called attention to what she called her “unparalleled record” as a legislator in the Seanad, and how she had worked on “a cross-party basis to achieve change”, such as on a bill that ends discrimination against LGBT teachers.
Bacik also ran on the platform of reforming the Seanad, advocating for constitutional change through which the Taoiseach’s power to nominate 11 Senators would be changed. She also advocated for the Seanad elections take place on the same day as those of the Dáil to prevent candidates from running in both elections.
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