29 March 2016
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
Fiona Ryan
Anti Austerity Alliance have chosen 27 year old financial services worker Fiona Ryan to replace Mick Barry TD as a councillor for the Cork City North Central ward on Cork City Council.
Fiona Ryan will be put forward for co-option to the Council at tonight’s meeting of Cork City Council.
A member of the Socialist Party as well as the Anti Austerity Alliance Fiona Ryan stood in the recent General Election for Anti Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit in the Cork South Central constituency. She lives in the southside of the city but will be moving to the northside to take up her new position.
Fiona Ryan is a prominent supporter of the campaign to repeal the 8th amendment. She was instrumental in inviting the “Abortion Pill” bus (a bus organised by supporters of a woman’s right to choose which visited several Irish cities last year providing a link between women in need of abortion services and medical practitioners who provide the so-called “abortion pill”) to Cork last year.
She is also a prominent member of the We Won’t Pay campaign which plays a central role in organising the mass boycott of water charge bills.
Her co-option to Cork City Council will give the Anti Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit a 3-person council grouping made up of Cllr Marion O’Sullivan, Cllr Lil O’Donnell and Fiona Ryan herself.
Mick Barry TD said this morning: “I doubt that Cork City Council has ever had an all-female council grouping of this size and I wonder if it’s even happened anywhere in the State before. Fiona Ryan will be an important part of this team and will be an excellent councillor for the people of the North Central ward.”
Fiona Ryan said this morning: “I aim to speak out on many issues on the Council but will make a special effort to highlight the issues facing young people. High rents, precarious jobs and mass emigration are huge issues for people of my age and they need to be brought to the centre of political debate in this city.”
