In photo attached from l-r: Ukrainian Ambassador Larysa Gerasko, President of Ireland Michael D Higgins, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, Senator Timmy Dooley. 

SENATOR TIMMY DOOLEY (FF) is the new Co-President of the ALDE Party.

At the 2022 ALDE Annual Congress in Dublin, the Mountshannon native was elected as the Co-President of the grouping of liberal European political parties.

Taoiseach Michael Martin (FF), Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton, and Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager were among the ALDE Prime Ministers and Commissioners who attended the congress.

Dooley said he was “honoured to have been elected to the position of the Co-President of the ALDE Party after a number of years of working at a vice president level. Fianna Fáil were pivotal in leading Ireland’s accession to the European Union 50 years ago and I was delighted to secure the congress for Ireland to mark that very important moment in our countries history”.

He continued, “There are very many challenges facing Europe at the moment and the strong response to the war in Ukraine is evidence of the importance of a powerful liberal voice within the European institutions. I’ve been working for a number of years with my Ukrainian colleagues and following the invasion by Russia, we sped up the process of welcoming President Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party into the ALDE family. President Zelensky’s party were represented by the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna at the congress where she formally accepted her party’s adoption into the ALDE Party”.

European security, the response to the war in Ukraine and energy independence for European countries were among the main talking points at the congress.

According to the former Clare TD, the congress held in Dublin “is estimated to have benefitted the local economy by €3.5 million”.