{"id":11430,"date":"2025-02-01T21:51:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T21:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=11430"},"modified":"2025-02-02T10:12:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T10:12:13","slug":"landmark-day-for-the-social-democrats-as-party-wins-first-ever-seanad-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/landmark-day-for-the-social-democrats-as-party-wins-first-ever-seanad-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark day for the Social Democrats as party wins first ever Seanad seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social Democrats acting leader Cian O\u2019Callaghan has described the election of Patricia Stephenson to Seanad \u00c9ireann as a landmark day for the party.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday marks another milestone for the Social Democrats following the increased mandate we received in the most recent local and general elections, where we almost doubled our number of councillors and TDs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor the first time, the party has seen a candidate for the Seanad elected, and we remain hopeful of a double victory if Cllr Joan Hopkins, our nominee on the Industrial and Commercial Panel, is successful in taking a second seat this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know Patricia will make a valuable contribution as a senator and I look forward to welcoming her to our expanded parliamentary party.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would also like to thank our director of elections Catherine Murphy, and deputy director of elections P\u00e1draig Rice TD, for the significant part they played in today\u2019s result.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Patricia Stephenson was born in Belfast and now lives in Castlecomer in County Kilkenny.<\/p>\n<p>A peacebuilding and conflict prevention advisor by profession, she spent six years in East Africa as an international aid worker before returning home to Ireland.<\/p>\n<p>Patricia said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am delighted and honoured to have been elected as a senator on the Labour Panel. I look forward to working hard on issues such as workers\u2019 rights and human rights, bringing my experience in the international development and peacebuilding sectors into this role.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a lot of hard work ahead, and I can\u2019t wait to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>February 1, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Social Democrats acting leader Cian O\u2019Callaghan has described the election of Patricia Stephenson to Seanad \u00c9ireann as a landmark day for the party. Deputy O\u2019Callaghan said: \u201cToday marks another milestone for the Social Democrats following the increased mandate we received in the most recent local and general elections, where we almost doubled our number of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[641,7,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patricia-stephenson","category-press-release","category-seanad"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Landmark day for the Social Democrats as party wins first ever Seanad seat - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/landmark-day-for-the-social-democrats-as-party-wins-first-ever-seanad-seat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Landmark day for the Social Democrats as party wins first ever Seanad seat - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Social Democrats acting leader Cian O\u2019Callaghan has described the election of Patricia Stephenson to Seanad \u00c9ireann as a landmark day for the party. 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