Senator Colm Burke (63) had a challenging election campaign. There was the fallout from the swing against Fine Gael and the controversy over the expenses collected by former TD Dara Murphy while working in Brussels.
But his Blackpool constituency office also had a brick thrown through the window and he reported that more than 250 of his campaign posters had been taken down and illegally removed.
It is his second Dáil election campaign in three months, having been the party’s candidate in the November byelection.
The party’s Seanad spokesman on health he has been a member of the Upper House since 2011, elected to the Industrial and Commercial Panel.
Last year his private member’s Civil Law (Presumption of Death) Bill was passed into law and means that the families of missing people who are presumed to have died will no longer have to wait seven years to deal with their estates.
A solicitor by training, he also served as a substitute member of the European Parliament for the Ireland South constituency from 2007 to 2009 when then MEP Simon Coveney was re-elected to the Dáil.
