Ruth Coppinger

Ruth Coppinger is an Irish Anti-Austerity Alliance politician. She was elected for Dublin West as a Teachta Dála (TD) at the 2014 Dublin West by-election. She was re-elected at the 2016 general election and became the first woman to be nominated for the role of Taoiseach. She is a member of the Socialist Party.

Political career

Coppinger was a member of Fingal County Council for the Mulhuddart area from 2003 to 2014.^[1] She was co-opted to the council in 2003, replacing Joe Higgins. She was elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. She was an unsuccessful candidate at the 2011 Dublin West by-election.^[1]

She later joined party colleague Joe Higgins in the Dáil as a result of the 2014 by-election in the same constituency.^[2][3] On being elected, she called for a mass campaign of opposition to water charges being imposed by the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition.^[4]

In September 2015, she joined homeless families from Blanchardstown in occupying a Nama-controlled property as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the housing crisis.^[5] In October 2015, she joined families in their occupation of a show house in her constituency to protest at the lack of availability of affordable social housing.^[6] She has also supported the tenants of Tyrrelstown who were made homeless when a Goldman Sachs vulture fund sold their houses.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

On 21 January 2016, Coppinger's house was burgled - she told RTÉ the following day: "When I arrived home at nine o'clock last night, the house had been rifled through."^[12][13]

She was re-elected to the Dáil at the 2016 general election, this time under the Anti-Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit banner.^[14] On 10 March 2016, at the first sitting of the 32nd Dáil, she nominated Richard Boyd Barrett for the role of Taoiseach, quoting James Connolly from a hundred years previously when she said: "The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system. It must go" and declaring: "We will not vote for the identical twin candidates" of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil after they "imposed austerity".^[15] On 6 April 2016, following the failure of the Dáil to elect a Taoiseach at that first sitting, she herself was nominated for the role of Taoiseach, becoming the first woman to achieve this in the history of the state.^{[16][17][18][19]}

Personal life

Coppinger lives in Mulhuddart. She is married to Imran Khan^[20] and is a secondary school teacher.^[21] Her eldest brother Eugene Coppinger serves on Fingal County Council.^[22]

References

External links

• Coppinger, Ruth. "Resentment over property tax is palpable", The Irish Times. 14 May 2014