About Brid

  • 1981: elected to the National Committee of the Hunger Strike campaign, along with others like Bernadette Devlin, fighting for political status for Bobby Sands and his comrades.
  • 1983: first female shop steward in Dublin Bus and Dublin Branch secretary of the National Bus and Railworkers Union.
  • 1984-87 organised solidarity pickets and collections for the Dunnes Stores strikers against Apartheid
  • 1984-5: support campaign for the British Miners Strike which  raised many thousands of pounds.
  • 1990: worked with Gateaux Bakery strikers who occupied the bakery against job losses for over a year.
  • 1992: played a key role in the struggle for abortion rights around the X Case and all the protests of the pro- choice campaign
  • Early 2000s played leadingrole in the Anti-Bin Tax campaign and built mass campaign in Ballyfermot/Inchicore. Jailed in Mountjoy along with other activists for direct action .
  • 2003: key role alongside Richard Boyd Barrett in the Irish Anti War Movement which organized  the biggest anti war protests in history.
  • 2005 -8: worked closely with the local people in Mayo in the magnificent  Shell to Sea campaign.
  • 2009: elected to represent Ballyfermot/Drimnagh on Dublin City Council. She is vocal on many local and national issues, works closely with the Traveller Community and consistently opposes austerity and cutbacks
  • 2011-13: played leading role in Campaigns against the Household Charge and the Property Tax, addressing meetings all over the country and chairing some of the Campaigns largest rallies and demonstrations.
  • 2014-15: early in 2014 Brid, with the sponsorship of Unite the union, organised a major coference on water charges, out of which, some months later the Right2Water campaign emerged. She has been a leading acivist in the campaign since, both locally and nationally, speaking at many of the monster marches and rallies in Dublin.
    Brid contested two elections in May 2014, she was re-elected as councillor for the Ballyfemot/Drimnagh ward to Dublin City Council, and now led the People Before Profit team of five new DCC councillors. Brid also stood in the European election for Dublin MEP, where she received nearly 24,000 votes from the people of Dublin.
  • 2016-18: Bríd was elected TD for Dublin South Central in February 2016. She joined her colleagues Richard Boyd Barret TD and Gino Kenny TD as People Before Profit representatives in Dáil Éireann. They, together with their colleagues in the Anti Austerity Alliance (later to change its name to Solidarity) have faught inside the Dáil, and without, on a wide range of issues.
  • Most notably, Bríd proposed the Repeal of the Eigth amendment to the Constitution in 2016, but was voted down by the Government parties and Fianna Fáil. In 2017 she proposed an amendment to the Protection of Life During Pregancy Act that would see the outrageous 14 year sentence for taking the abortion pill replaced with a €1 fine. Again, the government parties voted this down. Bríd was a member of the Joint Oireachteas Committee on the Eigth Amendment to the Constitution and played a leading role in the campaigns to Repeal the Eighth, speaking at many local, national and international fora on the topic.

Together with her Dáil colleagues she proposed a series of Bills to tackle the housing crisis: to declare a housing emergency (this to avail of special funding arrangements to build public housing); to prevent evictions; to cap rent increases; to declare housing as a Human Right.

Bríd has been very vocal in Dáil debates on a range of issues, particularly in defending workers rights: Ryanair workers, bus and rail workers, public sector workers affected by FEMPI legislation and unequal pay, and ‘precarious’ workers on ‘zero hour’ contracts and ‘casual’ work practices.

She has championed the rights of oppressed groups in the Dáil – Travellers, assylum seekers and refugees, victims of racism and victims of the Magdelen laundries and clerical sex-abuse victims still waiting for compensation. She has demanded the separation of Church and State, particularly in the running of our hospitals and schools.

The rights of rural communities and environmental issues are also areas where Bríd has taken a strong stand in the Dáil. She was very involved in secuing rights for pensioners and worked closely with the Pensioners for Equality group who forced a government u-turn on pension cutbacks.

She opposed Irish involvement in PESCO, the new EU army, and is a staunch defender of Irish neutrality. Bríd also champions the use of the Irish language and had addressed conferences and support organisations associated with it.

She has continued to oppose the underfunding and mismanagment of our health and education services, both locally and nationally, and is consistent in her demand that inequality in Irish society should be tackled by taxing the wealthy elites and the corporations.

In January 2018, Bríd’s Bill on Climate Emergency measures passed it’s first stage in the Dáil. This is an important first step in taking responsibility for global warming and devastating impacts. It also has a global significnace in that it shows we can lead by example.

Bríd’s role in the Right2Water movement, and its victory, is a source of great pride to all in People Before Profit. Bríd continues to keep a watchful eye on Irish Water, and is following the very amiguous approach to “excessive usage” charges with keen interest. Any attempt to re-introduce charges for households will prove ‘toxic’ to the politicians who support it, she has warned.

Watch this space.