Marian Harkin

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Marian Harkin (born November 26, 1953 in Ballintogher, County Sligo) is an Irish politician. She was elected as an independent TD to Dáil Éireann in the 2002 general election for the Sligo-Leitrim constituency, receiving the highest number of first preference votes in that election. She was subsequently elected to the European Parliament in 2004.

Prior to her election to Dáil Éireann, she worked as a teacher of mathematics in a secondary school in Sligo town. She is a graduate of University College Dublin with a BSc degree in geology. She is a native of County Sligo, but lived in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim with her husband, Seán Harkin, where he ran a grocery business until his death in 1996. After her husband's death, Harkin and her two sons moved to Sligo town where they currently live.

While living in Manorhamilton, Harkin became active in the voluntary and community sector and developed the view that people living in disadvantaged areas such as Connacht had to rely on their own initiative and energy to progress development of their region. Her work at local level led to her appointment to Developing the West Together, the body established by the Roman Catholic bishops of the province of Connacht to focus on the lack of delivery by successive Governments to that area of the country.

The Developing the West Together organisation evolved into the Council for the West, of which Harkin became chairwoman. The council contained representatives from all of the Connacht counties as well as County Donegal. Among the perceived outcomes of its advocacy and lobbying work were the creation of the Western Development Commission[1] and the retention of Objective 1 designation for the region for the period from 2000 to 2006. The Western Development Commission services all of Connacht as well as County Donegal and County Clare.

In the European election of 2004, she was returned as a member of the European Parliament for Ireland North-West. She had previously contested the 1999 European election in the same constituency (then called Connacht-Ulster), but had narrowly failed to be elected, losing out to Dana Rosemary Scallon for the third seat in the constituency. However in 2004, the position was reversed and Harkin was returned at Scallon's expense.

She is part of the European Parliament's European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party group.

In December 2006, she announced that she would not be standing at the forthcoming general election, and would instead concentrate on her membership of the European Parliament[2].