It has not been a good election for Fine Gael or incumbent women TDs, but Hildegarde Naughton (42) has managed to survive, albeit at the expense of her party colleague Sean Kyne who has lost his seat.
The former schoolteacher was first elected to Galway City Council in 2009 and became Mayor of Galway in 2011.
She was appointed to the Seanad in 2013. In 2016 she seized the chance to get on the Fine Gael ticket in the general election after Barry Walsh stepped aside from politics on health grounds.
In the last Dáil, she was chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Members’ Interests investigating the so-called “votegate” saga, but admitted she had voted for other TDs albeit while she was in the chamber.
Prior to that she was the chair of the Oireachtas Committee for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment.
