Chu to run for Greens in Dublin Bay South

Green Party councillor Hazel Chu has been selected to run in Eamon Ryan’s seat in Dublin Bay South in the upcoming general election.

The Pembroke councillor saw off competition from fellow Dublin City Council members Claire Byrne and Carolyn Moore to become the Green candidate.

An online hustings between the three candidates took place in mid-July, with the Sunday Times reporting that Chu won 103 votes, Byrne won 84 votes and Moore received 10 votes.

The newspaper reported that Byrne had received the backing of former party leader Eamon Ryan, who has held the seat for the party since 2016 (and held a seat in the precursor constituency of Dublin South from 2002 to 2011).

Ryan’s backing of Byrne was noted by the Irish Times, with the outlet noting that Bryne serves as Ryan’s parliamentary assistant. 

Chu revealed that Ryan congratulated her on the nomination.

Chu’s path to a general election candidate has been fraught; she burst onto the Irish political scene in 2019 with an astounding 33% of first preferences in her first-ever election campaign in 2019 as part of the Green wave that foreshadowed the party’s strong 2020 general election campaign.

After being elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 2021, Chu became the first person of Chinese ethnicity to become mayor of a major European city, complimenting her status as the first-ever Irish-born person of Chinese descent to be elected in Ireland.

The councillor made two attempts at winning a seat in the Seanad in 2021 and 2022.

In March 2021, Chu went forward for a seat in the Seanad but did not receive the full backing of the party with then-leader Eamon Ryan citing a loose arrangement within the coalition parties that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were allowed to run candidates unopposed.

As a result of the affair, which saw the Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin wings of the party clash, Chu stepped down as chairperson of the Green Party and subsequently ran as an unsuccessful independent candidate.

Chu’s subsequent unsuccessful independent run at a Seanad seat in 2022 didn’t receive as much attention as her previous outing.

Chu also made a bid to be the Greens’ candidate in the July 2021 Dáil by-election, but lost out to Claire Byrne on that occasion, with Bryne going on to lose against Labour leader Ivana Bacik after receiving 8% of first preferences.

Chu will now face off against fellow Pembroke councillor James Geoghegan of Fine Gael in the upcoming general election, with the current Lord Mayor of Dublin selected as Fine Gael’s candidate earlier this year.

Both Chu and Geoghegan were elected on the first count in Pembroke in June’s local elections, with Chu receiving 16.8% of first preferences and Geoghegan receiving 19.9% of first preferences.

The constituency will remain a 4-seater in the upcoming general election, with Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews, Bacik and Fianna Fáil TD Jim O’Callaghan all fighting for re-election.

Chu’s high media profile thanks to her stint as Lord Mayor of Dublin – as well as her candidness while discussing the racist and misogynist abuse she faces from online trolls – will add even more star power to an already glitzy constituency. 

Fine Gael will be looking to win back the seat following the resignation of former Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy in 2021, with the constituency going without a Fine Gael TD since Geoghegan’s loss to Bacik.

Current Green TDs, such as Chu’s husband Patrick Costello and fellow Southsiders Catherine Martin and Noel Francis Duffy have all been confirmed to run for re-election as the party looks to defend their record of 12 dáil seats