Kate O'Connell

Katherine O'Connell (; born 3 January 1980) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Bay South constituency from 2016 to 2020. During her time in the Dáil, O'Connell campaigned in favour of abortion rights as well as pushing for more funding for healthcare services in Ireland.

Political career O'Connell was a member of Dublin City Council for the local electoral area of Rathgar–Rathmines from 2014 to 2016.

O'Connell was selected by Fine Gael for the 2016 general election to "recapture" their seat in Dublin Bay South from Lucinda Creighton, who had left the party in 2013 over her objection to the party's position on abortion and in 2015 founded Renua, an anti-abortion party. During the campaign, O'Connell called Creighton's anti-abortion views "incredibly sanctimonious" and suggested that Creighton was an "out of touch career politician" whose views on abortion were borne out of a lack of connection with the real world. The Irish Independent referred to these comments as O'Connell "tearing strips off" of Creighton.

In November 2017 O'Connell confronted Barry Walsh, a member of Fine Gael's executive council, with a dossier of tweets documenting that he repeatedly and frequently derogated women politicians, often calling them bitches, including fellow members of Fine Gael. After the leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar commented that Walsh should resign, he did so.

O'Connell lost her seat at the 2020 general election, placing 5th in the 4-seat constituency. In an August 2020 interview, O'Connell attributed her loss, in part, to being the running mate of the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, in an election lately fought over an ongoing housing crisis in Ireland. The Phoenix offered the view that O'Connell would not be nominated because she had turned the Fine Gael leadership against her while lobbying for her sister Mary Newman Julian to be the party's candidate in a 2018 Seanad by-election. Fine Gael's candidate in the by-election was James Geoghegan, who had previously left the party to join Lucinda Creighton in Renua, but returned to Fine Gael after that party collapsed. Geoghegan lost the by-election to Labour's Ivana Bacik, a senator for Dublin University and veteran pro-choice campaigner.

In October 2024, O'Connell left Fine Gael to contest the next general election in Dublin Bay South as an independent candidate. She failed to be elected or to achieve the one-quarter of the quota necessary to recoup her election expenses.

Political views and profile O'Connell has been described by Irish political commentators and other politicians as one of the most outspoken (social) liberals and progressives in Irish politics,

The Phoenix has referred to O'Connell as Fine Gael's "most prominent Feminist" and praised her for not shrinking away from difficult debates in the Dáil over abortion. The Phoenix has also suggested that while O'Connell's outspokenness was praised by Fine Gael members when directed at opponents, equally she has caused internal discontent whenever she turned her criticisms inward, leading to her alienation from certain factions in the party.

In 2018 O'Connell was on the forefront of Fine Gael's campaign to secure a Yes vote in that year's referendum on the repeal of the 8th amendment, the piece of the Irish constitution which forbade abortion.

It was also in 2018 that O'Connell expressed the views that tax should be removed from the sale of condoms, that free contraception should be made available to women, that cannabis should be legalised and that Ireland should move to the eventual decriminalisation of all drugs. and following Varadkar's resignation as Fine Gael leader in 2024, O'Connell said that his resignation marked the "end of a dark enough chapter" in her life.

In March 2020 Justine McCarthy, writing for The Times, accused Catholic conservative journalist John McGuirk of writing a hit piece on O'Connell that lambasted her for her liberalism. McCarthy opined that Irish politics needed more, not fewer politicians like O'Connell, and that McGuirk was a hypocrite for not levelling his same criticisms at male members of Fine Gael.

Personal life O'Connell has stated her family, the Newmans, have been "involved in Fine Gael since the 1960s", starting when O'Connell's maternal grandfather ran for Fine Gael as a councillor. Her brother-in-law Hugh O'Connell is a prominent political journalist and editor who has worked for several Irish publications.

In 2018 during debates in the Dáil regarding abortion, O'Connell disclosed personal details of a traumatic pregnancy she herself had experienced. During the pregnancy, she was told her child would only have a 10% chance of survival. This prompted O'Connell to have to consider terminating the pregnancy. O'Connell cites the difficult decisions made during that pregnancy as having greatly informed her views on abortion.