Why I would love to be the Justice Minister
She’s had her political ups and downs but Ivana Bacik feels she is now perfectly poised to strike on her home turf of Dublin Bay South
THE good humour emanating from Ivana Bacik’s campaign team is palpable and, even in these dreary Delta variant days, somewhat catching.
It’s just days after an opinion poll for the Dublin Bay South by-election put the Labour senator in second place, behind Fine Gael neophyte James Geoghegan but ahead of Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan. Nothing can dull the positivity.
‘I was very pleased about that result, but I wasn’t surprised,’ says soft-spoken Ivana. ‘It confirmed my view that the narrative from Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, that it is a David and Goliath battle, is wrong. It suits both those parties to pretend that they are the best of enemies but it’s disrespectful to the other candidates and to the constituency.’
Although she can spout political platitudes like the best of them, Ivana is different from many of her counterparts. Her relaxed humour, curiosity about others and friendliness means that she passes the ‘political beer test’ – where a candidate’s likeability is judged in terms of whether you’d have a beer with them or not – a lot more easily than you’d expect from a high-falutin’ academic who as, Trinity’s Reid Professor of Criminal Law, has Mary Robinson as a predecessor.
Charm aside, she’s not slow to trumpet that she lives in the constituency - a rarity in this by-election. She and her new husband Alan Saul are raising their teenage daughters in trendy Portobello, on Carlisle Street, to be precise.
‘This is my home turf,’ she says, speaking to me near the Shelbourne Park Greyhound stadium in the southeast inner-city. ‘I have lived here since I was 11, and my family moved from Cork to Rathgar. We lived on Bushy Park Road, my mother lives in Terenure and I have lived since around 1998 in Portobello. Myself and my partner were looking to buy a house in our thirties and Portobello was much more affordable then than it is now. Also, we love the neighbourhood, it’s a great place to live.’
Last Christmas, Ivana and Alan finally tied the knot in the registry office, followed by dinner in Locks restaurant with nine guests, well below the Covid regulation number. What made them take the plunge now as opposed to another point in their 30 years of togetherness?
‘My stepfather Jerry Quinlan, an accountant from Nenagh in Tipperary, used always say that we should get married, and I promised him we would. He died in 2019 so we married the following year in his memory. There was also the fact that our two daughters were putting pressure on us to get married,’ laughs Ivana.
How does she feel about the Tánaiste and his partner Dr Matt Barrett moving nearby. ‘Oh, they are very welcome. I have friends [living] near them, and I gather it’s the talk of the area. I know Leo, he’s younger than me, of course – I was his law lecturer for six weeks before he moved to medicine.’
Although Ivana has been a household name since the late-Eighties when she became a postergirl of sorts for the Right to Choose after SPUC took her to court for publishing contact details of UK abortion clinics, she failed – or was prevented by party power games – to leverage her profile into the Dáil or Europe.
After a flurry of dashed attempts in the early Noughties, her absence in recent elections might have led voters to assume she had thrown in the towel, but it appears she was merely biding her time for an opportunity in her own back yard.
Her most recent Dáil defeat, in 2011, saw her campaign as Eamon Gilmore’s running mate and narrowly lose to Richard Boyd Barrett in Dún Laoghaire.
In 2004 she ran alongside Proinsias de Rossa in the European Parliament elections and was defeated, her transfers helping de
‘I’ve lived here since I was 11’
Rossa over the line.
In 2009 she ran in the Dublin Central by-election, in Joe Costello’s constituency and was again defeated.
Rightly or wrongly the impression was created of her being moved hither and yon to serve the party interest or for the advancement of
‘My pro-choice views are mainstream now’
heavy-hitter senior colleagues rather than her own aims. Did she ever feel bitter about the serial rejection?
‘I always try to remain positive, but after 2011 in Dún Laoghaire I just vowed to myself, that unless I was running in my home base, I would never again run for the Dáil. I think that if you are running for the Dáil it has to be from your own constituency where you know the issues,’ she says in what also may be a dig at her by-election rivals.
However cautious Ivana is about her prospects on Thursday, she is optimistic about her party’s revival. A cynic might say that with a 3% ranking in a recent national poll, that Labour is toast, but Ivana is adamant that it is set to rebuild the centreleft vote. She also denies it is about to cede the grittier street to hardleft parties or Sinn Féin to become the party of the well-heeled socially liberal set, where she herself has most appeal.
‘Ruairi Quinn always got huge support in the southeast inner-city and Kevin Humphreys recaptured that support in recent years. Ruairi drew support from right across this
constituency from affluent to working class neighbourhoods over 30 years, reflecting Labour’s cross class appeal and I’m hoping to replicate that,’ she says.
How does she feel about parties, like Sinn Féin in particular stealing, Labour’s social justice mantle as its own? ‘Well, clearly Ireland has changed hugely in recent years. My pro-choice views are mainstream now, but 20 years ago most political parties didn’t support abortion rights or marriage equality. Sinn Féin wouldn’t touch those issues whereas Labour has stayed true to its principles.’
She delivers the familiar line that Labour is the party of the trade union movement and of social democracy, promoting left economics and social equality, two ideological threads that are in her view, interlinked.
‘In Europe we are a member of the socialist bloc and here we belong to the great tradition of Connolly, Larkin and Countess Markievicz. Sinn Féin is a populist party and their position on property tax belies their socialist principles. It’s utterly bizarre to me how they could reconcile those two ideas.’
With referenda passed on marriage equality and repeal, has the liberal agenda reached the final frontier? ‘I don’t think so as there are issues on women’s rights that still have a long way to go. I have worked hard in the Senate on gender pay and on the review of the abortion legislation. I’m also keen to see more recognition of carers.
‘There’s also the ownership of the National Maternity Hospital. Stephen Donnelly is meeting the Senate about that. I want to see it in public ownership as I don’t think a guarantee of independence will suffice. I understand the Holles Street staff want to see another hospital without delay, but you have to consider the bigger context which is, why is the Church is so reluctant to give the lands to the State. Why retain ownership? What do they hope to gain? As someone said to me, the Church has been around such a long time that a 99-year lease means nothing.’
Eager also to see the separation of Church and State in education, where 90% of schools are in the hands of the Catholic Church, Ivana was chair of the Portobello Educate Together start-up committee which set up the area’s first school, now located in Basin Lane, Rialto.
The school was too late for her daughters who went to Ranelagh multidenominational. She won’t say where the girls are for secondary level except that her preference for co-ed means they didn’t follow her to Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin .
From her national school in Cork, Ivana won a scholarship to Alex when she was 11 and even today reels off the names of her inspirational teachers. She appreciates their formative influence on young minds. ‘I’m a teacher too, or a lecturer, and I still meet former students who recall the trips I arranged to Mountjoy, which was such an eye-opener for them.’
The mention of the ’Joy brings us neatly to one of Ivana’s passion projects: penal reform, sentencing and criminal justice policies, issues which she has devoted much time to in the senate. Whereas most aspiring Dáil deputies would hesitate to lay out their future game plan, she owns up to her ambitions to become education minister and particularly justice minister.
‘I think anyone who is serious about achieving change must be ambitious and I would be like to be minister for justice or education. I’m a practising criminal lawyer and an academic. I was on the Oireachtas justice committee and spent a lot of time on in the Senate on penal reform, sentencing and criminal justice policies. I’m passionate about these issues.’
As an erudite scholar and lawyer, has she ever experienced prejudice against her learning or her leadership role at the vanguard of the socially progressive movement of the Eighties?
‘It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I suppose any woman who is over 50 grew up with very few models of women in strong positions and men haven’t either so there is this unconscious bias .
‘Look at this constituency – it has the highest liberal vote in the country, yet all its TDs are male. I think there is an instinctive resistance to seeing women in leadership positions and a wariness of women.’
She rejects the perception of her as an ivory tower intellect, reluctant to roll up her sleeves on local issues, a glorified gofer for her constituents. ‘Gosh no I was sweeping the streets in Portobello the other day. The local issues have to be done from getting a new pedestrian crossing on Camden Street to a new playing field for the Ranelagh Gaels. That’s the job.’
She doesn’t deny that if she fails to win next week, she will still be Labour’s candidate in the next general election. ‘I’m staying here,’ she says. ‘I’m not going anywhere. This is my home.’
‘All the TDs are male in this constituency’