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GREEN PARTY COUNCILLOR Hazel Chu has been elected Lord Mayor of Dublin at a ceremony in the Mansion House this evening.
Chu, who is the party’s Chairperson and was elected to Dublin City Council in last year’s local elections, will replace Fianna Fáil’s Tom Brabazon who has held the post since February.
Brabazon was elected interim Lord Mayor following the election to the Dáil of Fianna Fáil’s Paul McAuliffe.
Chu was elected following a vote of councillors this evening, with 43 votes in favour and nine against.
“I am overwhelmed and humbled,” Chu said in a speech following her election to the role, in which she pledged to fight housing and homelessness.
She also said that she would tackle discrimination, saying that it wasn’t enough “not to be racist, we have to be anti-racist”.
Chu said she would like to promote discussions about race and gender during her tenure.
Hazel Chu was born and raised in Dublin, in the suburb of Firhouse, before moving to Celbridge, and now lives in Ranelagh with her partner Patrick and their two-year-old daughter Alex.
Dublin City Council / Twitter
Dublin City Council / Twitter / Twitter
Councillor Chu became the first Green Party councillor to be elected in the 2019 local elections for the ward of Pembroke and topped the poll with over 4,000 first preference votes. In the same year she was elected chair of the Green Party.
She studied politics and history in UCD and trained to be a barrister at Kings Inns. While studying she worked as a fundraising consultant for non-profits and as a production manager for music festivals.
After being called to the Bar in 2007, she worked in Sydney, Hong Kong and Guilin. Upon returning home she was offered a Fellowship by UCD Smurfit and worked in New York for Bord Bia. She has worked in various management roles and in 2013 became Diageo’s Head of Brand, Corporate and Trade Communications.
Councillor Chu was the first person in her family to finish school and go to college. Her parents are from Hong Kong, and met in Ireland in the 1970s.
Hazel Chu is the 9th woman to hold the office of the Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Councillor Mary Callaghan of the Social Democrats was elected as Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, by 43 votes to 9.
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Good on her. Congrats
Ye’ll all be walking to go to work by the looks of it ,roads will paved over and petrol same price as an once of gold by the end of the green illusion, Ireland saving the planet
@Gerard Heery: You sound like you’d prefer more pollution and compulsory use of diesel vehicles by everone? Does the thought of clean air and water trigger you that much?
@Gerard Heery: i will miss going to Dublin.
@Gerard Heery: *ounce
@Gerard Heery: lord mayor doesn’t set fuel prices
@Gerard Heery: “roads will paved over” – roads are already paved over. That’s what makes them roads.
@Gerard Heery: the Greens are not and won’t be that powerful , relax
@James Walsh: we’re too small to make a difference the world is overpopulated for its need of resources grows with population taxing anything that moves make the everything dearer and less competitive and those who were able to sustane a living will now will be dependant on some kind off welfare and covid virus is more for environment than a trillion Euro in taxes and will bring a recession when the second wave hits and slots of businesses will find they are no longer viable anyway, this country is to greedy for small Enterprises to survive what’s coming down the tracks.
@DJ François: no but she voted for it on Friday didn’t she
@Philip: intelligent foresight is the word your looking for, not pounce if thats the best contribution you have to offer you’d better to kept sucking your tumb
@Christy Dolan: they wrote off 1000s of good cars in 2008 all had to be scrapped then remanufactured with probably more damage to the environment in the long run a pure hoax of a policy
@James Walsh: diesel supplies your food at some stage before it reaches your table at a price your can afford, why don’t the government take the taxes off petrol then and have all tractor Lorries ships that deliver food at the same price
@fish: not with the covid going around
It’s going from bad to worse!
@james cullen: it’s great!
Time to end the traffic jams, pollution and wasted hours. Bicycles and public transport should be given priority to create a new city no longer dominated by King car.
@GO GREEN: If only, but a bit beyond the remit of a ceremonial mayor!
@Brynþór Patrekursson: Perhaps but she could promote it for sure.
@GO GREEN: I have a load of timber that has to be taken down to Longford from Dublin docks..how many bicycles do ya think I would need..
@Bornicks eyes.: he’s talking about fewer cars in cities, can’t you read? No one is talking about road haulage.
@Connoroconner: today it’s cars ,next week it’s trucks,before those nut cases are finished we will all be going around on roller skates and wheel barrows. Each Bullock will have a pipe us his behind to catch the co2 gases..there all buying into the Al gore climate change money making scam. What a shit show.
It’s nothing to the disappointment the country feels when naming the Taoiseach.
Fantastic news!!
@Ann Experiment: For tree huggers and cyclists.
@Billy McNamara: the mayor has no real power.
Scary times,,, the Fox’s will be in charge of the hens.
@Bornicks eyes.: *Foxes, “Fox’s” is something that belongs to a fox, or to a human being with the surname of Fox. Basic stuff really!
Well done.. But we still miss Royston brady
@Padraig Carey: Typical FF bluffer/gangster
@Padraig Carey: Is that the same Royston who said history would vindicate Bertie Aherne? Lol
Hope she can develop public transport for someone living in North co.dublin travelling to the south side of the docks for work working shift.
Best of Luck to her!
Congratulations from Firhouse Hazel
@Ann Basquille Smith: Ssh – she tries to hide her Tallaght past, although it’s a great answer for the “patriot” racists who ask where she is originally from.
@Brynþór Patrekursson: so asking someone where they’re originally from IS racist? Right..
@FecklessBear: Yes especially considering she is originally from Dublin.
@FecklessBear:
Racist – no
Inappropriate, misguided, ignorant, lacking in social skills – most definitely
“Racist” is a strong word that we should keep for occasions where it is actually warranted.
@Damon16: and yeah, if you have to ask if it’s appropriate, it’s usually not.
@Damon16: it’s definitely racist when the people asking know full well and still keep up the premise she’s not irish after “finding out”.
Brilliant! Well done Hazel!!! Hopefully you will get lots of positive vibe comments to drown out the haters.
Good.
Progress. Little steps, but moving forward.
She’s going to fight housing and homelessnes so will she fight for or against
@Seamus Brady: With the Council a housing authority this is one area she and the rest of the council can make a difference. We’ll see in the councils budget in the autumn but they have the power to raise resources to help tackle the problem.
@The next small thing: DCC gets a budget of over one billion and can’t solve simple issues like potholes and litter. There’s no way they’ll be able to fix housing.
@Seamus Brady: going to create homelessness with crazy anti business policies and wasting public money on cycling infrastructure upgrades that cyclists don’t pay for!
And here was me thinking the Irish are racist
@classic: Irish is anything but racist. We were victims of discrimination for centuries.
@classic @seriousnonojoke: ye two are hilarious!
@classic: Ireland only became racist because a certain society decided to call itself a race, so we couldn’t call it discrimination anymore. Culture boss
@Seriousnojoke: Ireland is racist. We were victims of discrimination not because of our skin colour but for being Irish. Xenophobia.
Aaaa sure what about Dublin and the dubs sure she can paint o Connell street green if she wants and the rest of the country wouldn’t care.
Greens are daft enough to do something like that
@Ned: For your own sake it’d be best if you stop drinking paint, it causes brain damage.
We need a nuclear power stations now
@Tom Mc Cormack: No we don’t, we have a population of only five million, we can easily generate the majority of our energy needs from renewable sources if the will to do so exists.
Fair feckin play. Go girl
Mayor for 1 year….only in dublin…how can u impose yourself in one fecking year….
@Florin Strango: at the moment, Mayor is really just an honorary position with no real power. Imposing yourself doesn’t arise. Not sure how the plans are going for a directly elected mayor for the city.
Best of luck Lord Mayor Hazel Chu hopefully this type of appointment will have a positive impact of enticing more people from different cultural backgrounds into the political environment and we get some TDs in the near future along with Teaching, Garda ,Firefighters to name a few.
Also love to see few pubs allowed stay open till early hours of the morning like some parts of Europe
have your say