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Profile

Senator Ivana Bacik, LLB, LLM (Lond), BL, FTCD, is 39 and the Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin (previously held by Mary Robinson and President Mary McAleese). She is a Senior Lecturer and also a Fellow of Trinity College (elected in 2005), and a practising barrister.

  • A 1989 Trinity Law graduate, she has a Masters from the London School of Economics and practises as a barrister in Dublin. As President of TCD Students’ Union (1989-90), she was taken to court by SPUC for providing information on abortion - in a case that paved the way for legal change in favour of women’s rights.
  • Ivana’s family name is Czech. Her grandfather Karel Bacik was in the Czech resistance and was imprisoned by the Nazis. After the war, he moved to Ireland with his young family, where they lived in Waterford.
  • Ivana contested Seanad elections in 1997 and 2002, and narrowly missed taking a seat in 2002. She was elected for the first time in 2007 (see those results here).
  • Ivana is an Independent Senator, and has support from many different political perspectives. She is a Labour Party member but does not take any political party whip, in keeping with the traditional independence of Trinity Senators.
  • Proficient in Irish, Spanish and French, Ivana has lectured widely in Europe on legal, social and human rights issues. In April 2003, she was an invited speaker at the National Forum on Europe in Dublin Castle. She has been active in many human rights campaigns with a European dimension, most recently the movement against the war in Iraq and the Irish Social Forum.
  • Initiator of the Law Scholarships Scheme providing access to College for students from disadvantaged schools. An access scheme is now operative throughout the College under the auspices of the Trinity Access Programme.
  • Honorary Secretary of the TCD Law Alumni Association (1996 - 2004).
  • A College Tutor, on the College Equality Committee and Student Health Committee.
  • Co-author of: Abortion and the Law, Towards a Culture of Human Rights in Ireland, and Crime and Poverty in Ireland .
  • Contributor to the leading Irish criminological text, Criminal Justice in Ireland (O’Mahony, ed, 2002).
  • One of the three co-ordinators of a major Government-funded study of gender in the legal professions, published as Gender Injustice (TCD Law School, 2003).
  • Editor of the Irish Criminal Law Journal until 2003.
  • Regular contributor to: the Irish Times and Irish Independent newspapers; RTÉ’s Questions & Answers and other media.
  • Board member, Friends of the Earth Ireland; and Corn Exchange Theatre Company
  • Columnist with Gay Community News from July 2003 - December 2005.
  • Board member, Irish Family Planning Association until 2004; Irish Penal Reform Trust until 2003.
  • Former Executive member of: Irish Council for Civil Liberties; TCD Lecturers’ Union, Irish Federation of University Teachers.
  • Honorary Patron of the Carlow and South Leinster Rape Crisis Centre; a Patron of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
  • A prominent spokesperson for the Alliance for a No Vote (ANV) in the successful campaign to defeat the referendum on abortion in March 2002.
  • A founder member of Lawyers Against the Amendment, a campaign group set up to call for a No vote in the Citizenship Referendum in June 2004.
  • Worked with Senator David Norris on drafting civil partnership legislation currently before the Seanad.
  • A Labour Party member and candidate for the 2004 European elections in Dublin (see the results here).

Ivana is a radical new left-wing and feminist voice in the Seanad.

Working for Real Change!