Nessa Childers MEP - Biography

Political

Nessa Childers is an Irish Labour Party politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Ireland East constituency.  Previously Nessa was a councillor for the Blackrock area of South Dublin 2004–2008.

A member of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, Nessa is also member the delegation for relations with Japan and substitute member of the Committee on Culture and Education.

Policy Priorities in the European Parliament

• Public health, promoting positive mental health and working on an EU-wide basis to tackle health challenges from Alzheimer’s and dementia to cancer.
• Greater transparency in parliamentary and political decision-making, and is working and campaigning for greater regulation for lobbyists both in Dublin and Brussels.
• Tackling climate change while protecting wildlife and our built and natural heritage

Professional and Educational Background

Nessa Childers has an Arts and Psychology degree from Trinity College, Dublin and a postgraduate diploma in psychology from University College Dublin.

Prior to her election to the European Parliament in 2009 Nessa worked as a psychoanalyst for over twenty years, her practice was established in 1986 with her former husband Ross Skelton. In 1993, along with colleagues, Nessa established the M. Sc. course in Phychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Trinity College Dublin, as well as lecturing and teaching, she was course Director between the years 2001 to 2006.

Family

The daughter of the fourth President of Ireland, Erskine Childers and his second wife, Rita Childers, Nessa has two children, aged 16 and 21, and lives in Clonskeagh in South Dublin.