Catherine Murphy (politician)

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Catherine Murphy (born 1 September 1953)^[1] is an Irish independent politician from Leixlip in County Kildare, and a former Teachta Dála (TD) for Kildare North.

[edit] Career

Murphy was brought up in Dublin but moved to Leixlip in 1978. She stood unsuccessfully as a Workers' Party candidate for the Leinster constituency in the European Parliament election, 1989 and for Kildare in the 1989 general election.^[2]

She first held political office in 1991 when she was elected to Kildare County Council as a Workers' Party councillor for Celbridge. When the Workers' Party split in 1992, she followed Proinsias De Rossa into the new Democratic Left, and stood unsuccessfully as a Democratic Left in Kildare at the 1992 and 1997 general elections.^[2]

After the Democratic Left's merger with the Labour Party in 1999, she was re-elected at the County Council for Leixlip, and also won a seat on Leixlip Town Council. However, she was unhappy with the merger, and subsequently left the party. She stood as n independent candidate at the 2004 local elections, and was re-elected to both her council seats.^[2]

Charlie McCreevy, the Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare North, resigned from the Dáil in November 2004 when he was appointed as a European Commissioner. Murphy contested the resulting by-election in March 2005 as an independent candidate, and won the seat. On a low turnout, she polled slightly fewer first-preference votes than Fianna Fáil's Áine Brady, but was elected on the fifth count. Her by-election campaign had the backing of several other prominent independent TDs such as Tony Gregory and Marian Harkin.^[3] Murphy's campaign was based on such issues as transport, local government, affordable housing and education, and after her victory she promised to be a "thorn in he side" of the government.^[4]

In the 2007 general election, she lost her seat to her by-election opponent, Áine Brady. Brady was elected on the first and Murphy held on until the last count when Fine Gael's Bernard Durkan reached the quota through by a massive transfer from his elimibated running mate.^[5]