How long have you been active in politics in general, and in Ógra specifically?
I have been active in politics since 2014 and then I got involved in Ógra at the end of 2015. The start of 2016 is when I started to become quite active. I got involved when I went to university: I was the first female chair of Ógra in our university. After me, we had two consecutive female chairs after me, so there’s been three of us now, which has been really great.
What are the fundamental values of Ógra, and how do you work to promote these?
In general, I think we are very inclusive, we’re progressive and we’re a republican party. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what your background is, what socioeconomic status or education you have. We want to be an Ireland for everyone, and I think we really do live that. We still have to do more to talk to all people from all types of backgrounds, people who are immigrants, people who don’t have university education, all that. That’s what we strive for, we want an Ireland for everyone, and I think if you look at our membership, it reflects that.
Can you tell me a little about how Ógra works? How is it structured?
Our days kind of vary. There’s never two days the same. Sometimes we could be really, really busy and have several calls and events. With covid, we had moved online primarily and now we are kind of in a transition between a hybrid and online presence. At the moment, with universities back, we have university events maybe weekly, or biweekly. Ourselves, as the central officers board, we have meetings once a month. It’s five of us and we represent the national subcommittee. Day-to-day, we’re in contact constantly through e-mail, WhatsApp groups, Facebook groups; we’re constantly in contact with people so there is always something going on.
At the moment, we’re working a lot with LYMEC and we’re working with Alliance Youth and with the Liberals in the UK. We’re trying to find something we can all be involved in. We are also doing a spike awareness campaign. I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s been a massive rise in Dublin with spiking incidents. and we’re having a campaign at the moment to make people aware and show what to look for, what is happening and what people can do. This is our main focus at the moment, safety, especially with our university students being exposed to that.
What kind of people are active in Ógra? Are you active across Ireland?
We’re active across the island, even in the six counties in the North. We do have a Northern organization. Our base is mainly university students but have others who are not in university who have taken apprenticeship routes and they are very important to us as well. We speak largely for them too when we speak to our Taoiseach and our ministers. There’s also a number of people who have gone straight into work, who didn’t get a formal education or apprenticeship. So, we really do have a large breadth of active people.
What is your role in Ireland’s domestic politics? As far as I know, Fianna Fáil is currently in government, what role does that play for you?
Our government is a little bit different at the moment. We’ve got a three-party government and a rotating Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister). Our leader is the current Taoiseach and he has two years in the role and that it rotates to another member of the coalition. We have quite a good relationship with the government, I believe. We’ve met with several ministers, specifically the minister of agriculture, because CAP, the common agricultural policy, is very important to our members. The minister of education is also someone we really like to speak to. Additionally, the housing minister is a really big one, because housing is very important for young adults, with many being concerned about housing and housing availability. We have a good relationship with them, they are very open to meeting with us and we try to liaise with them as much as we can. To be honest, there’s never a day or a week at least where they don’t hear from us. But they are very open, and we appreciate that they meet with us all the time.
What are some of the projects or activities you are working on or preparing for the next year?
At the moment, our focus is on the spiking campaign and bringing awareness to that. In general, we also want to protect the Northern Ireland Protocol, that’s something big that has kind of been thrown into disarray. But I think that it’s very important that it’s maintained because that is the only way to protect Ireland from the long-term impacts of that. Additionally, I would like to see us really integrate ourselves with LYMEC, I want to build relations with our sister parties. We have been cooperating a lot with European Youth of Ukraine, we’ve been in constant contact with them. I actually have a call with them after this. We’re constantly working to get to know people. We didn’t really have an international officer – I think the first time we had an international officer was four or five years ago, so it’s quite a new role. So, we’re trying to establish ourselves. We really just want to create a network, so people know who we are and know what we are about. And know that we are approachable, because that’s what we are, we are open to work with anyone.
That already goes into my next question – how important is international work for you, and what would you want your cooperation with international partners to look like?
In the long term, I think I would maybe like to have someone run for the LYMEC bureau. I don’t think that we’ve had that or at least not that I can remember. I would also really love to approach females to get involved. Ógra is more or less fifty-fifty; the males tend to be a bit more vocal, which is fine, I love to see young men involved, but I would also like to inspire young females. I’m the first international officer who is a female for Ógra, and I would love to see more girls involved, also for example at the congress that we had in Paris. I want girls to know that here we are, there’s more of us that are involved in Europe.
What do you think Ógra is good at? Why do you think that is?
In Ógra, we back each other to the end. We can fight between ourselves, but if something happens, we really do have each other’s backs. And I can’t really explain it, but it just bonds you with your fellow members like nothing else will. Politics can be really hostile sometimes, especially with other parties and other youth wings, it can be really difficult and it helps if you have a family in Ógra. We all want the same thing. I mean, we have different ideas about how we can achieve it. I might have a certain viewpoint and then someone else might come at it from a different angle. We might fight amongst ourselves, but we do have each other’s back and we do care at the end of the day, so I think we are quite a solid movement.
What has motivated you to become active in liberalism, and to become involved with a liberal party specifically?
The liberal values, they really do speak to me and what I stand for at my core. Ógra can be centrist, I want to bring it a bit more to the left, maybe not too far but definitely more left leaning. LYMEC, it lined up with our ideas. There’s more power in unity, and I just thought there’s an opening here, let’s capitalize on that and let’s stay in touch. It’s good when you have different sister parties who are on the same page, because it gives it more weight. As well as that, international relations and international politics was always something I was really interested in and I thought I could bring a different flavor to the international officer role. I kind of had a clear direction where I wanted to go and getting the name Ógra out there was really something that I wanted to do. I thought there had kind of been a bit of a lull and I was very strongly motivated to get out there and to really get the name out there and show that we’re strong and we want to work.