BIOGRAPHY

Lynn Ruane is an independent Irish politician, who has served as a Senator and the deputy leader of the Civil Engagement Group in Seanad Éireann since 2016. Lynn is from Tallaght – an historically underserved and neglected community in Dublin – where she lives with her two daughters.

Before entering politics, Lynn developed community drug services and community initiatives over 15 years in Tallaght and Dublin’s Canal Communities. She now champions the causes most close to her heart and community in Ireland’s parliament.

As a firm believer in lifelong learning, Lynn has engaged in education for most of her adult life. After leaving school at the age of 15, Lynn attended An Cosán in Tallaght before going on to study addiction at IT Tallaght. Lynn later returned to full-time education as a mature student; graduating from Trinity College Dublin with an honours degree in Political Science, Philosophy, Economics and Sociology in 2016.

In 2015, while at Trinity, she ran for the position of President of the College’s Students’ Union and was elected, becoming the first female President in a 12 year period.

Lynn gained entry to university through the Trinity Access Programme. Lynn is proud of her TAP connection and was delighted to see her eldest daughter also graduate from the access programme and enter Trinity College as an English Literature and Film Studies student in 2018.

Lynn completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Dublin City University in 2022, deciding to study creative writing as a way to amplify the stories and narratives of those who so often do not get to tell their own.

She announced her intention to contest the 2016 Seanad election as an independent candidate and was elected to the Oireachtas at her first attempt and at the age of 31. She has now served as an Independent Senator for Trinity College for eight years, having been re-elected in 2020.

An ardent legislator, Lynn tables progressive bills which respond to the lived experiences of those on the margins of society. To date, Lynn has developed and introduced 7 bills, co-sponsoring a further 29, and has tabled more than 3,000 legislative amendments. Lynn works in a constructive manner, engaging with all parties and none to affect progressive change. This term, this approach yielded a substantive change in Irish employment law, which bans the misuse of non-disclosure agreements in cases of abuse, harassment, and discrimination.

In addition to her legislative work, Lynn has been active in Oireachtas Committees, serving in this term on the standing Joint Committees on Justice, and Children, Equality, Disability Integration and Youth, in addition to the special Committees on Drugs Use, Assisted Dying, and International Surrogacy.

Lynn has taken her role beyond the Seanad chamber and the gates of Leinster House by developing programmes in the community, often with the support of Trinity College and its graduates, including Project Sums, a programme which provides free Leaving Certificate maths grinds to students from disadvantaged areas; Philosophy in the Community, a programme which introduces disenfranchised communities to philosophy and philosophical dialogue; Conversations on the Margins, a podcast series exploring the lives of those incarcerated in Irish Prisons; and, in 2024, a scoping study and report into neurodiversity in Irish prisons, developed with the support of TCD’s School of Psychology, the Irish Penal Reform Trust, and the Community Foundation of Ireland.

To read about Senator Lynn Ruane’s record to date click here.