Previously a high-profile campaigner against water charges and the bank bailout, Joan Collins is an Independents4Change TD and a combative politician.
Collins was first elected to the Dáil in 2011 as a member of People Before Profit, but later stood and won re-election as an Independent in the 2016 election. She joined the Independents4Change grouping in the 32nd Dáil alongside Clare Daly and Mick Wallace.
From Inchicore, during the last Dáil Collins championed legislation to hold a referendum on keeping the water network in public ownership.
She previously attempted to take a court challenge over the issuing of some €31 billion worth of promissory notes to the former Anglo Irish Bank, Irish Nationwide Building Society and the EBS.
She was first elected to Dublin City Council in the Crumlin-Kimmage ward in 2004 as an Independent, where she held a seat until her election to the Dáil.
She was a prominent campaigner in the anti-water charges movement, and Collins and eight others had been charged with failing to comply with a garda’s direction during an anti-water meter protest, but the case was later dismissed.
She took the final seat in Dublin South Central in the 2020 general election, ahead of Fine Gael minister of state Catherine Byrne. Despite a poor first preference poll, Collins benefitted from Sinn Féin and People Before Profit transfers to retain her seat.
