The organisations are committed to nominating person or persons "having knowledge and practical experience concerning... public administration and social services, including voluntary social activities" as required by the constitution and relevant legislation.
The nominating bodies, so far, promoting this approach are MS Ireland, Inclusion Ireland, Deafhear.ie, Center for Independent Living, Co-operative Housing Ireland and Disability Federation of Ireland. There are others in the final stages of internal decision making. The intention is to achieve representation of people with the requisite experience and knowledge who will not be taking a party whip. We are keen to support candidates who will be able to commit to representing social services including the voluntary social services and the missions of the nominating bodies.
The call for candidates commenced on Monday 22nd February and the closing date is Monday, 29th February. Following that there is a process to achieve compliance with the qualifying criteria for candidates to contest the Administrative Panel and then the participating nominating bodies will elect a candidate or candidates and put them forward for nomination to contest the Seanad election.
Further reading
- Candidate Pledge and Criteria is available here
- Information on the Selection Process is available here
Further details are available by contacting the Carmichael Centre on (01) 8735702.