A Donegal-based Seanad candidate will become first female Traveller to be elected to the Oireachtas.
Eileen Flynn, who grew up in the Labre Park Traveller housing site in Ballyfermot in Dublin, is one of new Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s 11 appointments to the Seanad.
Nine of the Taoiseach’s 11 Seanad appointees are women.
Ms Flynn has lived in Donegal since 2018, having married a local ‘settled’ man, Liam White. They have a daughter.
She is a graduate of Trinity College and Maynooth University, and has been an activist for the past 10 years, working with the Irish Traveller Movement and the National Traveller Women’s Forum.
Ms Flynn had stood in the Seanad election earlier this year after being nominated by Donegal independent TD Thomas Pringle.
She narrowly lost out on a seat on the Labour panel.
The new Seanad is set to meet at the Dublin Convention Centre, a temporary Dáil chamber which allows for social distancing, on Monday.
