Seán Ó Fearghaíl: Even handed Ceann Comhairle who made the Dáil a 'more relevant' place

Seán Ó Fearghaíl, the newly-elected Ceann Comhairle of the 33rd Dáil, took five attempts before finally taking his seat in Dáil Éireann in the aftermath of the 2002 general election.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl, the newly-elected

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Mr Ó Fearghaíl, the 59-year-old Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare South, is of farming stock, and worked both for Dublin Corporation, and as an insurance salesman before first being elected to Kildare County Council in 1985, having joined Fianna Fáil in 1979.

He graduated from the council to a term in the Seanad in 2000 before ascending to Dáil Éireann two years later. He was appointed as his party’s spokesman for foreign affairs having come through the Fianna Fáil ‘massacre’ at the 2011 election unscathed.

At his last stand for election in his native Kildare in 2016, Mr Ó Fearghaíl was elected on the sixth and final count, the stress of which was probably alleviated by his party having brought a second deputy — Fiona O’Loughlin —across the line.

The respect with which he is held was made clear both in the landslide nature of his vote for re-election, and in the praise he received today.

Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan, described him as having been a “superb” Ceann Comhairle while pointing to Mr Ó Fearghaíl’s record of having never ejected a fellow deputy from the Dáil chamber as proof of his even-handedness.

People Before Profit TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, possibly paid the new chair the most notable compliment in a sea of congratulation:

“You made the Dáil a more relevant place.”

Born in Dublin, but resident in Athy, Mr Ó Fearghaíl remains a part-time farmer of 100 acres in Kildare.

He has been married to Mary Claire Meaney since 1997 and has one son and three daughters.