Rónán Mullen
Rónán Mullen - (born 13 October 1970) is an independent Irish Senator and delegate to the Council of Europe. He was elected by the National University of Ireland Seanad constituency in July 2007 and re-elected for a second term in 2011.[1] Mullen is a frequent media commentator on social and political topics.
Political Career[edit]
In 2007, Mullen ran for the Seanad on the National University of Ireland Seanad Panel; he obtained the second-highest number of first preference votes. In 2011 he was re-elected to the Seanad. Mullen is also member of the Joint Committees on Social Protection as well as the Joint Committee on European Affairs. Mullen has also supported the extension of the franchise for senatorial elections to all university graduates. In the aftermath of the defeat in referendum of the first Lisbon Treaty Mullen was appointed to a sub-committee on European Affairs charged with investigating the political impasse. In September 2010 Mullen introduced the first ever Private Members' Motion in the Oireachtas dedicated to the issue of hospice care.
He was the first National University of Ireland senator appointed to the Council of Europe, he received international coverage for his role in defeating the controversial McCafferty Report which sought to limit the right to conscientious objection for medical staff in the case of abortions. In 2010, Mullen replaced the late Deputy Tony Gregory as an independent member of the Irish parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, where he joined the European People's Party (Christian Democrat) group, the largest political group represented in the Council of Europe. He became the first NUI Senator to be appointed to the Council of Europe, and only the second Independent Senator to be appointed. Mullen is a member of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population and an alternate member of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee. Mullen ran as an independent candidate in the Midlands–North-West constituency for the 2014 European Parliament election.
Education[edit]
He studied French and English at National University of Ireland, Galway, where he was also president of the Students' Union. Then, in 1993, he moved to Dublin and studied for a Masters' degree in journalism, after which he worked as a teacher and press secretary. In 1999 he began training as a barrister in the King's Inns, during which he won the Irish Times Debate. He was called to the Bar in 2003. Since 2001 he has been a lecturer in the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown.
