Malachai O'Hara
I want to be a Senator for all voices from Northern Ireland.
The Green Party is the only all-island cross community party. As someone not pre-determined on the constitutional future of the North and my background in activism and the community sector, I can amplify all voices in the Seanad.
I am the Leader of the Green Party Northern Ireland and have been since August 2022. I am a Senator in the Oireachtas since April 2024.
I am determined that the Green Party in Northern Ireland regains seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
I am passionate about social and environmental justice. For too long, Northern Ireland has fallen behind environmentally and while progress on peace has been made we have not had the prosperity and reconciliation that was promised after the Good Friday Agreement.
As the sole Northern Ireland based Senator in the Seanad, I am determined to amplify the voices of all communities from Northern Ireland and to be a Senator for all.
I want to ensure that we develop all island approaches on areas of pragmatic sense, such as cross-border services, energy, public transport and the arts.
The Climate and Biodiversity crises do not recognise man made borders and we must address these issues on an all-island basis.
Experience
I joined the Green Party Northern Ireland in 2014 and reestablished the North Belfast Greens in 2015. I was instrumental in electing two Green MLAs in 2016 and 2017, before being elected myself as a Belfast City Councillor in 2019. I became deputy leader of the Party in 2019 and leader in August 2022. I also became a Harbour Commissioner.
Prior to politics, I worked for almost two decades in the community sector, primarily in health inequalities and peace building, including over 7 years at Ireland’s largest LGBTQ+ charity. I was the former vice chair of the Equal Marriage Campaign in the North and served as a board member for a local suicide prevention charity and regional mental health charity. During the first wave of the COVID pandemic, I set up a soup kitchen which delivered 17,000 meals to vulnerable people. This was a cross community project built from the ground up, working with loyalist ex prisoners based on the Shankill, and across North and West Belfast.
