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Former Senator and Cancer Advocate Kathleen O'Meara seeks Labour Presidential nomination

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Labour Party items
Monday 30 May 2011
Former Senator and Cancer Advocate Kathleen O'Meara seeks Labour Presidential nomination
-O'Meara wants a national engagement, a conversation across communities, to create a new Proclamation for 2016
Former Labour Senator and now Cancer Advocate Kathleen O'Meara has formally announced that she is in the race to be Labour's Presidential candidate.

51-year old O'Meara, a former RTE journalist who served in the Seanad for ten years and ran for the Dail in North Tipperary, is currently Head of Advocacy and Communications at the Irish Cancer Society.

She wrote to the Party's TDs, Senators and Executive Board members two weeks ago, when the process formally opened, asking to be considered as a candidate in the Election which will take place in October.

In a statement today, Kathleen O'Meara said: "This Presidential Election is taking place during one of the most difficult and challenging times in this nation's history, but also at a time when many citizens are asking who we are as a nation, what are our values, what do we cherish and who do we need to be to build our nation again? "I want to build a project, a national engagement, a conversation which would take place in every community in Ireland, asking those questions and hearing from the people themselves about who they want us, Ireland, to be. This engagement would be the way that we could reconnect with our true selves as a nation, and build a new vision, together; a vision which would be given expression in a new Proclamation, to be declared in 2016, the centenary of the first Proclamation. This would be a new Proclamation for a new Nation.

"The first Proclamation was ambitious and inspiring, but there are many ways we did not live up to it. We did not cherish all the children of the nation equally, for instance, and still don't. And we have had to concede sovereignty in the face of a financial failure, in order to survive and continue to exist.

"Amidst the wreckage we are now in, is an opportunity to start again, to preserve the best of what we have created and build a new vision to take this nation forward. The theme of the next Presidency, under my leadership, would be Building the Nation. This is why I am seeking this nomination.

"I will be campaigning on community, where we care for each other; solidarity, where we stand up for each other; social justice, so that no one is left behind and leadership in public life, not just the exercise of power.

"I believe the Irish people are innately fair and generous, and want a just society and a political leadership that serves the people. I also believe that the conversation I want us to engage in will make a difference for us as a people and allow us to express for ourselves what we really want for our Nation and our children.

"This is the foundation we can build on for a new Nation.”

Ms. O'Meara is a former RTE journalist and Labour Party Press Officer. She worked as a Ministerial Adviser to Eithne Fitzgerald and was a member of Seanad Eireann from 1997 - 2007. While she works in Dublin, her home is in Nenagh with her daughter Fiona aged 18. Her son Mark, 27, lives in Australia.

"I am and have always been a leader, campaigner and advocate. As a journalist, politician and now cancer advocate, I have brought and continue to bring my passion for leadership and social justice to my work. I also want to contribute my talents and skills to the rebuilding of this nation and I am asking for the support of the Labour Party to ensure this will be the core work of the next Presidency. I believe it is timely and necessary work for the nation right now.”