Evelyn Owens

Evelyn Perpetua Owens (22 January 1931 – 26 September 2010) was an Irish Labour Party politician and trade union activist.

Evelyn Owens was a pioneering advocate for women’s rights and industrial relations in Ireland. Her frustration with gender-based pay disparity on the Dublin Corporation led her to champion equal pay, joining the Irish Local Government Officials' Union (ILGOU) and securing equal pay rates for women in the 1960s. Owens became the first female president of ILGOU and used her position in Seanad Éireann (1969–77) to push for equal pay and women’s rights. During her tenure in the Seanad, Owens became the first woman to hold the office of Leas-Chathaoirleach.

Owens continued to make a significant impact as chair of the Labour Court from 1994, advancing gender equality and securing key rulings on sexual harassment and discrimination. Her mediation helped avert a national nurses' strike in 1997 and contributed to major reforms, including the introduction of the minimum wage in 2001.

Early life Evelyn Perpetua Owens The choice to attend Trinity required formal “permission” from her parish priest, reflecting the era’s religious strictures on women’s higher education. She was a member of the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), chairperson of its women's advisory committee and a member of the Council for the Status of Women. She used her Seanad platform to champion equal pay, co-education and the rights of abandoned wives, distressed widows and single mothers. Impeccably turned out and business-like in manner, she won the respect of her overwhelmingly male colleagues. Throughout, she retained her post with Dublin Corporation, which allowed her leave to attend Senate meetings. She also sat on the Council for the Status of Women in the early 1970s and chaired Labour’s Women’s National Council from 1975. Although firmly on the liberal wing of Labour, Owens upheld party discipline, distinguishing herself from the more outspoken feminist activists of the period; she framed her arguments in class terms and later remarked that feminism had achieved little for working mothers. she served as a member of the board of Beaumont Hospital and of the Medical Council of Ireland.

Personal life Owens never married.