| Kathy Sinnott | |
|---|---|
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office June 2004 – June 2009 |
|
| Constituency | South |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 September 1950 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Political party | Independent |
| Alma mater | Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, University College Dublin |
| Website | KathySinnott.ie |
Kathy Sinnott (born 29 September 1950) is a disability rights campaigner and a former politician. She represented the South constituency in Ireland in the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009.[1]
She is secretary of the Hope Project,[2] a charity that helps people with disabilities. Sinnott founded the Hope Project in 1996. She is mother of 9 children (3 daughters and 6 sons). In 2000, she took a court case to force the Irish government to provide a primary school education for her son Jamie who has multiple disabilities. In 2001, the High Court ruled that every person in Ireland had a constitutional right to primary education and it was based on need, not age.[3] The government subsequently successfully appealed the case to the Supreme Court.[4]
She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the South constituency at the 2004 European Parliament election. She campaigned on disability and education issues, euroscepticism and social conservatism.
She had stood previously at the 2002 general election for a seat in the Cork South Central constituency, and narrowly losing the fifth and final seat to John Dennehy of Fianna Fáil. In the election count, she was initially ahead by 3 votes but lost by 6 votes after two recounts.[5] She was an unsuccessful candidate at the subsequent Senate election in 2002 she had been nominated by 4 sitting Independent TDs [6], losing out by 3 votes to a Fine Geal Candidate. She required a high court judgement to allow her to run for the seanad on the Labour Panel.[7]
She is a former co-chair of the European Parliament's Eurosceptic Independence/Democracy group. Sinnott was a member and Vice-President of the EUDemocrats – Alliance for a Europe of Democracies.
On 8 June 2009 Sinnott lost her seat in the European Parliament. She received more than 30% fewer votes than in the 2004 European Parliament election.[8]
In September 2009 her son Kevin drowned in a swimming accident in Georgia.[9] He was a final year philosophy student at the Southern Catholic College in Dawsonville, Georgia.[9]
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