Donegal Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Cllr Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

Pádraig is a member of both Donegal County Council (representing Inishowen) and Buncrana Town Council.

He is currently serving his second term as Mayor of Buncrana having previously held the position from June 2005 to June 2006. He is also currently the Deputy Mayor of Donegal.

He has been the Sinn Féin candidate for Donegal North East in Dáil elections on two occasions. In 2002, he received 10% (3611 votes) and in the 2007 general election, he received 17.5% (6733 votes), just missing out on a Dáil seat. He contested the Northwest EU constituency for Sinn Féin in the EU parliament elections of 2009, and received over 45,000 votes with just over 9% of the vote.

In the 2004 and 2009 local elections, he topped the poll in the Inishowen Electoral Area of Donegal County Council and he was also elected to Buncrana Town Council. Pádraig had been coopted on to Buncrana Town Council in January 2002 to replace Jim Ferry who had retired.

He was the National Director of Sinn Féin's successful campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in 2008.

He is Chairperson of his party's National Councillors Forum (NCF) and has served on the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle (National Executive). He continues to represent the party at national and international level on a regular basis.

He was appointed to the board of InterTradeIreland, the Trade and Business Development Body in December 2007. InterTradeIreland is one of six All Ireland bodies established under the Good Friday Agreement.

Incensed by the high levels of unemployment in his native county, he acted as the Donegal spokesperson for the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) from 1997 to 2001. He also served on the INOU National Executive from 1997 until 2000 as well as representing the organisation on the National Rural Development Forum.

At local level, he was a community director on the Inishowen Partnership Board for 5 years from 1996 to 2001.

His work as a community activist and political representative has led him to speak at conferences across Europe on the issues of unemployment, regional neglect and rural poverty.