Labour's Ms Mary Freehill has become the fourth woman lord mayor of Dublin in over 60 years as part of a deal to rotate the post with Fianna Fail. Another Labour councillor, Mr Brendan Carr, is deputy Lord Mayor.
Ms Freehill was elected yesterday evening by 34 votes to nine, with nine abstentions. Under the agreement with Fianna Fail, the two Labour councillors will hold their posts for a year. They will then be held by Fianna Fail nominees. The post of lord mayor will be held by Fianna Fail three times and by the Labour Party twice over the next five years.
Ms Freehill is the first woman lord mayor since Ms Carmencita Hederman was elected to the post 11 years ago. She is a social worker with the National Rehabilitation Board and represents Rathmines. In a statement last night, she said she was delighted that Dublin would have a lord mayor who was both a woman and a socialist.
"What this means is that my priority is the people of the city - and especially those whose needs are not being met, despite how well-off many others have become."
She committed herself to working to tackle homelessness, and particularly the increasing number of mostly young people sleeping on the streets. She said the housing crisis, and the need for local authorities to build more dwellings, was one of her "crucial concerns".
She was "particularly anxious about the plight of those in private rented accommodation - many of them older women - who live in dread of a rent increase they cannot afford. They have to be given security of tenure."
She said there was a need to look at "ways of making greater use of under-occupied dwellings in the city, for example, by making it easier to insure over-the-shop dwellings, by using better design to enable higher housing densities and by making it easier for older people to leave large homes and move to smaller accommodation with degrees of security and supervision suitable to their needs".
Members of the Socialist Party protested outside the Civic Museum - being used last night because City Hall is being renovated - as Ms Freehill was being elected. The protesters demanded that the Corporation place affordable housing at the top of its priorities.
Fianna Fail and Labour councillors agreed on an emergency motion which called on the City Manager to direct the Corporation's housing department to investigate the purchase of St Ultan's flats in Charlemont Street. Fianna Fail proposed that the flats' tenants be rehoused.