Alice-Mary Higgins: a social campaigner since childhood

More than once in the course of her interview with the Galway City Tribune, Alice-Mary Higgins, who is running for Seanad Éireann on the NUI panel, apologises for leaping from topic to topic.

It’s just that there are many issues on which she feels strongly – and she leaps with agility.

Alice-Mary’s understanding of a broad range of subjects is impressive, and it’s difficult to imagine it being otherwise. The oldest child of President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina, she has been campaigning on social issues since childhood. The one she cut her teeth on was the 1995 divorce referendum, when she was 19, she says. That, and the first Gulf War.

Alice-Mary’s career path saw her join Trócaire, working on policy and advocacy in the areas of climate change, food security and peace building. She also worked successfully on the Older and Bolder campaigns to defend the State Pension and to protect home care. She was a co-ordinator with Comhlamh, an anti-racism project, and currently is Policy Co-ordinator for the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

That’s just for starters, as Alice-Mary’s CV in the area of social development and advocacy is a long one. At present she’s on unpaid leave from the Women’s Council, having decided at Christmas to pursue one of three NUI seats in next month’s Seanad elections. There are 30 candidates, but she’s campaigning hard and has some heavyweight backers, including Catriona Crowe of the National Archives, and retired UCD lecturer and women’s rights campaigner, Ailbhe Smyth, as well as NUIG’s Head of Law, Professor Donncha O’Connell.

“I’m conscious that I have stepped out of one sphere and into another,” says Alice-Mary on a visit to Galway where she’s mixing campaigning with the opportunity to catch up with friends.

On another level, though, this campaign is “a continuum of the work I have been doing; an attempt to take it onto a different level”, she adds.

With the Women’s Council, Alice-Mary has addressed various Oireachtas committees, which has given her a sense of what these cross-party groups, made up of TDs and Senators can achieve.

They are calmer arenas that the Dáil chamber and offer a place where “civil society can get legislation initiated”.

Alice-Mary has spoken on the issue of gender pay gap and worked on the Low Pay Commission Bill, which she describes as “good, but I wanted it to have a stronger mandate so that we could look at work poverty and the gender pay gap”.

She lists off statistics to show how this gap is increasing, not decreasing and how women’s pensions are also often lower than men’s.

Tackling low-paid work is something she feels strongly about, as are ‘If-and-when contracts’ (similar to zero-hour contracts). She has addressed the Oireachtas Jobs committee on that that issue.

The Seanad would present her with an opportunity to bring her experiences from civil society – including the Older and Bolder pension campaign, and campaigns on women’s issues, to a wider forum.

As a Senator, she could also “invite others in as witnesses and to draw on their expertise to ensure the legislation that’s passed is working on the ground”, she says.

It would be impossible interview Alice-Mary without asking if she has Dáil ambitions.

The Labour seat in Galway West, which was hard-won and held by her father over several elections, was lost just a month ago when his successor, the sitting incumbent, Derek Nolan, was defeated.

Alice-Mary might seem to many to be a potential successor to Michael D, but she dismisses that. Her life so far has involved “working with national groups and drawing mandates from national organisations. I know and am familiar with that cross-cutting mandate, which is national rather than local”.

Local issues, such as the state of Galway’s hospitals, do interest her, but her experience and skills are at national level.

For instance, she says, she has worked with unemployed young people in Dublin and in rural towns, so she knows the common and different issues faced by these people.

“The work I have done has allowed me to knit different experiences from different parts of the country. And regional representation is important but so are other forums, so I have no plans to run for the Dáil. I don’t intend to.”

The Seanad has powers and “we’ve seen what can be done when you have Senators who have a vision and who use it as a different space”.

Alice-Mary, however, does have an issue with the fact that its electorate is so restricted.

“There are a lot of people who want to support me and can’t,” she says, because voting is confined to registered graduates of UCD, UCC, NUI Maynooth and NUI Galway.

Seanad reform is on her agenda, and she’d like to see universal suffrage, explaining that this would be possible via legislation rather than a referendum.

“There are already good proposals that could be implemented by legislation, from people such as Senator Feargal Quinn, Maurice Manning, Katherine Zappone (now a TD) and John Crown.”

Alice-Mary graduated from UCD in Philosophy and English, followed by an MPhil in Theatre at Trinity – one of her essays was on ‘The Woman in the Bed in Irish Theatre’. Then she got a Fulbright Scholarship to New York where she studied social research, while living in an arts collective.

Back at home, she worked with Artists Against Racism, where gradually the work became less about arts and more about legislation, she says.

But the arts have been integral to her life since childhood.

“When you grow up in Galway and are engaged in politics, you learn that arts and politics are interwoven, Galway always had that perspective.”

One of the most memorable moments of her life was as a teenager in 1992 when she attended the rehearsed readings and first production of Eclipsed, which first put the spotlight on Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries. The readings were done by young friends in Galway Youth Theatre and the production was staged by Punchbag Theatre in a disused garage at Spanish Parade.

“That was the first time I had heard about the Magdalen Laundries – through the arts it emerged into public consciousness.”

The State’s Direct Provision policy for asylum seekers is a successor to those institutions, and again, it’s been artists who have led the campaign against it, she says.

There are many more issues on which she feels strongly – equality for women, proper childcare, home-care, inter-generational solidarity and community services.

“Our economy is only sustainable on the back of care. We need to recognise that and plan for it, using demographics and percentages. While everyone’s individual circumstance is different, some things are so predictable.”

Given her experience with Trócaire, Alice-Mary feels deeply about climate change and suggests that the Seanad is “a place where responsible debates on climate change could take place”.

And she wants the State to factor in climate change when awarding public contracts. Money isn’t the only issue, she says, “social, environmental and employment criteria” should also be attached.

It’s difficult to imagine Alice-Mary having ‘down time’ but she does. Swimming in the sea is relaxing, as is dancing – “I love dancing” – and going to theatre. Her mother, Sabina, an actress, has been a big influence in this regard.

Family is important to her, but her parents cannot be involved in this campaign, and aren’t, she says.

“What I’ve learned through my life is in me, what I started in Galway with my family, but the separation is very clear and I’m very conscious of those boundaries.

“I think I’ve made my own path in the world. I’m not following anybody.”

She has a core campaign staff of “seven or eight”, all volunteers, and is meeting goodwill and interest on the campaign.

“I am lucky in that I am drawing support from all the parts of my past, all the different chapters.”

More information at

AliceMaryHiggins.ie