Katherine Zappone Independent for the Seanad

Trinity College Constituency

Experience
Integrity
Independence

Shaping transformative rights-based laws for our people and communities through partnership, collaboration and determination.

My policy priorities

Why I’m asking for your vote

To Serve

I love Ireland, and have chosen it as my home for almost 40 years.  It’s been my honour to serve the country and its people, especially those whose rights or opportunities have been limited or denied.  I have represented the electorate as an Independent in both the Seanad and the Dáil. Now, I am seeking another opportunity to serve in the Seanad, to ensure that the needs of all our people are represented in our laws and that everyone shares in the prosperity and promise of modern Ireland.

To Work for Prosperity and Justice

I want to continue my public work. For no child in Ireland to be in poverty. For housing, transport and services fit for our growth. For a thriving education system that delivers opportunities for all. And for a kinder, inclusive society, where engagement and discourse drive our greatest leaps forward.

To Get Things Done

Ireland is a prosperous and highly developed country. And yet there is so much still to do. I have a track record of getting things done – marriage equality, reproductive healthcare, parental entitlement to financial support for childcare, and protecting democratic checks and balances by saving the Seanad.  My independence allows me to be progressive and pragmatic and to get things done through consultation and dialogue. 

To Represent You

I am running because I believe that mine is the kind of independent, progressive voice that Trinity College electors want in the Seanad. I will represent you with pride, integrity, experience and—always—determination.
 
I respectfully ask for your No.1 Vote. Postal Votes in by 29th Jan 2025

My policy priorities

Secure the Future and Accessibility
of Higher Education and Research

Achieve security through sustainable funding models for each type of higher education – further, community and university
Guarantee access regardless of social condition or geographic location and wholeheartedly accommodate diverse physical and cognitive abilities. Make sure there is sufficient housing
Establish security for all learners through connecting accessible and affordable pathways between further, community and university education
Finalise a robust and effective infrastructure for Research Ireland, and secure the research environment through increased funding, and Research Ireland’s ongoing collaboration with research institutes, centres, various faculties, multi-institutional initiatives,  and with researchers themselves.

Childhood Poverty Gone for Good

Invest sufficient income in those households with children who need it most, so that 230,000 children no longer live in conditions of poverty
Let every child have an equal start in early childhood care and education
Establish a sustainable funding model for children’s organisations who partner in the work of the state

Ensure All Citizen’s Voices are Heard

Hear people’s voices, invest in their communities and infrastructure
Create spaces for us to talk to one another and work 
together on key issues.
Design a stronger infrastructure and process for regular, impactful Citizens’ Assemblies.
Strengthen the capacity of neighbourhoods, community groups and civil society organisations to have a greater voice in policy development and implementation across pivotal issues

Support LGBTQI+ Expression

2025 is the 10th anniversary of Marriage Equality in Ireland. Build on the rights won to protect and enable free expression of LGBTQ +identities across all facets of Irish life
Secure increased investment in LGBTQI+ health, especially mental health services, early intervention in towns and communities, and a compassionate model of healthcare for trans adults and youth delivered in primary care settings
Promote reform so that all children of LGBTQI+ parents have equal rights through a legal relationship with both of their parents.
Address the greatest contemporary obstacles: Disinformation, hate speech, radicalisation, online threats and violence, and violence off-line

Reform the Seanad

All citizens should have a vote in the Seanad
Secure people’s right to elect their lawmakers
Give the Seanad teeth as a check-and-balance on the Dáil
Make the institution of the state work for the people of the state.(Enact Seanad Bill 2020)

About Me

America

I was born in Spokane, Washington State, the second child of five. My mom’s grandmother, Catherine Brady, hailed from Virginia, Co. Cavan. My family moved to Seattle when I was nine, where Holy Names Academy, a prep school for girls, provided me with such a fine second level education that I went on to flourish at Seattle University.

Coming to Ireland

Meeting Ann Louise Gilligan in 1981 changed my life forever.  She was from Dublin. We met at Boston College, the only two in the PhD programme. In love, I followed her to Ireland in 1983 and I began the first of nine wonderful years teaching feminist and liberation theologies and ethics at Trinity College Dublin. I learned together with my students about justice, freedom and how to live according to our values.  I felt at home. 

The Shanty and An Cosán

At Boston College, Ann Louise and I were inspired by teachings on the transformative power of education. Back in Ireland, we had the opportunity to put theory into practice. We found ‘The Shanty’, an old wooden house in Brittas, Co. Dublin, and worked with others to open our home for adult education courses. Through the leadership, hard work and dedication of many, this became An Cosán, now the largest community education organisation in Ireland.

Human Rights and Activism

After Trinity College Dublin, I was appointed chief executive of the National Women’s Council of Ireland and then a Commissioner of the first Irish Human Rights Commission. Ten years at the IHRC taught me how to interpret the law with a human rights lens.  In 2003,  Ann Louise Gilligan and I married in Canada, and asked the Irish state to recognize our new status. It refused. The resulting Zappone/Gilligan vs Ireland case took the fight for marriage equality to the highest court in the land, and was the catalyst for the marriage equality movement. On 22 May, 2015 Ireland became the first country to approve marriage equality by popular vote.

Senator

In 2011, I was appointed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to a five year term as an Independent Senator. Early on, I launched the Quinn/Zappone bill and campaign to Save the Seanad. The people voted to retain the Seanad, in part due to our advocacy for its reform. I wrote bills to help advance the gender recognition law, and the Right to Love for people with cognitive disability. I fought for fairness in the Irish economic model, and for a special focus on our children, launching an ‘Equal Start’ policy for them. 

Minister for Children and Youth Affairs

I was elected to represent the people of Dublin South West as an Independent TD in 2016, and appointed Minister for Children and Youth affairs by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.  I advocated for the citizens’ assembly for consideration of the 8th amendment, and campaigned with government colleagues for the people to ‘Repeal the 8th‘. I fought to achieve the first major increase in the childcare budget, parents’ legal entitlement to childcare subsidies, and was one of the first government ministers to advocate for free hot meals in all primary schools (now a reality). I also worked behind the scenes to free Ibrahim Halawa from his unjust imprisonment in Egypt. In 2020, I was appointed a special envoy to advocate for Ireland’s place on the UN Security Council. Working with colleagues in Foreign Affairs and beyond, we were successful.

Today

I am so happy to be home in Ireland, after a three year break in New York City, where I served on a Lancet Covid-19 Commission Taskforce and was advisor to the Dean for Global Health and Human Rights at Mount Sinai Medical School.  I also wrote my memoir (out in Summer 2025). Today, I serve as an Honorary Research Fellow in the WiSE Centre for Economic Justice at the Glasgow Caledonian University, and am an Honorary Fellow in the Educational Disadvantage Centre, at Dublin City University. As a director at Ratio.org.uk, I work with colleagues to advance a more equal and dynamic relationship between the people and the state.  

Education

Katherine received her BA in Psychology and Theology, summa cum laude, from Seattle University in 1976.

She then travelled across the United States to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, where she received her MA in Religious Studies in 1978.

After teaching religion at second level in New York city, she was admitted to Boston College, where she completed her PhD in Education and Religion in 1986.  Moving to Ireland, she taught ethics and the liberation theologies in Trinity College Dublin for almost a decade.

After Trinity, Katherine undertook an MBA at the Smurfit Business School in University College Dublin and graduated first place, first class honours in 1997. 

During her term in Seanad Éireann, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Laws from the Sutherland School of Law at University College Dublin, to acknowledge her contribution to the advancement of human rights.

“Katherine Zappone is one of the most prominent social change engineers of modern Ireland who has brought passion, energy and expertise to the service of the common good.”
Citation from UCD honorary doctorate.

Selected Writings

  • Katherine Zappone, co-author with Ozge Karadag Caman et al,  Safeguarding People Living in Vulnerable Conditions in the Covid-19 Era ‘The Lancet, Vol.7, Issue 1, January 2022, e86-e92.
  • Katherine Zappone, editor, Reclaiming the Secret of Love, Feminism, Imagination and Sexual Difference, by Ann Louise Gilligan, (London: Peter Lang, 2021).
  • Katherine Zappone, ‘Ireland’s Chance: Recovering the Truth, Framing Justice After Tuam’, Boston College Magazine Vol. 79, No. 1, Winter 2019
  • Katherine Zappone, ‘After the 8th: Re-Visioning Reproductive Justice’, Dublin City University 2017
  • Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone, ‘Sexual Identity, Law, and Social Change’ in Bacik & Rogan (eds), Legal Cases That Changed Ireland (2017; Clarus Press
  • Ann Louise Gilligan & Katherine Zappone, ‘The Journey Towards Winning: Our Story’ In Grainne Healy & Orla Howard (eds), Crossing the Threshold: the Story of the Marriage Equality Movement (Dublin: Merrion Press, 2017)
  • Ann Louise Gilligan & Katherine Zappone, Our Lives Out Loud: In Pursuit of Justice and Equality (2008; O’Brien Press)
  • Senator Katherine Zappone, Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill, 2014, Houses of the Oireachtas – aimed to reform law to ensure that persons with an intellectual disability have the same freedom to consent to sexual activity as persons without a disability
  • PACE Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, Rapporteur: Katherine Zappone, Improving Co-Operation between National Human Rights Institutions and Parliament in Addressing Equality and Non-Discrimination Issues (2014 AS/Ega (2014) 11)

Speeches and Presentations

UN

  • Addressed UN General Assembly, 25th Anniversary of the ICPD (2019)
  • Three times addressed the UN Security Council:

    • 31st October 2017 – Open Debate on ‘Children and armed Conflict’

    • 9th July 2018 – Open Debate on ‘Children and armed Conflict’

    • 6th December 2018 – Open Debate on ‘Co-operation between UN and regional and sub-regional organisations: the role of States, regional arrangements and the UN in the prevention and resolution of conflicts’

  • Addressed UN celebration of 100 Years of Irish Women’s Suffrage, ‘Our Future Will Become the Past of Other Women’ Poem to celebrate Votail 100 by Eavan Boland (2018)

UN-related

  • Addressed the African Leadership Meeting – ‘Investing in Health at the 32nd Ordinary Session of the African Union, Addis Ababa  (2019)
  • Addressed African Union Roundtable on ‘Addressing Root Causes of Forced Displacement and Achieving Durable Solutions in Africa’, Addis Ababa (2019)
  • Addressed UNICEF Event – ‘Leave no Child Behind: Achieving the SDGs through investing in the Rights of the Child’ (2019)
  • Addressed the ‘Ireland and Global Education Monitoring Report Side event on SDG 4 (2019)
  • Addressed the ILO in UN Headquarters ‘Celebrating 100 Years of the International Labour Organisation (2019).

European Union

  • Council of the European Union (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport), Brussels, ‘European Union Youth Strategy 2019-2027: From Vision to Implementation’ (2018)
  • Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Vienna Youth Ministers’ meeting, ‘Youth and Politicians – How to foster fruitful dialogue and participation within Erasmus and the EU Youth Strategy’ (2018)
  • Council of the European Union (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport), Brussels, ‘What’s next? The issues that matter to young people and possible European efforts to address these issues’ (2017)
  • Council of the European Union (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport), Brussels, ‘The role of youth policy and the youth sector in an integrated approach to support youth in their identity development’ (2016)
  • Council of the European Union (Education, Youth, Culture and Sport), Brussels, ‘Young Europeans at the centre of a modern European Union’ (2016)

International Speeches

  • Copenhagen Key Note Speech Hosted by the Danish Chairmanship of the committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the Danish Parliament, Conference on Private and family life for LGBTI people (2018)
  • ‘Love’s Pursuit: An Approach to Transitional Justice in Ireland’ Boston College International Conference on Transitional Justice (2018)

International Engagements

  • Meeting Minister for Finance, Lesotho (2019)
  • ‘Gender-Based Violence and young people’ Diepsloot township in South Africa (2019)
  • Meeting with President of Namibia and his Council (2019)
  • Meetings with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Namibia (2019)
  • Addressed UNFPA event in Namibia, Hosted by Namibian First Lady (2019)
  • Meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister, Botswana (2019)

National Speeches

News and updates

Ratio Talks

11/11/2024

I had the pleasure on appearing on the Ratio Talks podcast. You can listen to it from the link below. Aoife Gallagher is…