Ivana Bacik has officially been proposed as the new leader of Labour.
The first time TD was proposed by the members of Labour’s Dublin Bay South Constituency Council on Thursday night.
Local councillor and former Dublin Lord Mayor, Mary Freehill, made the proposal and the secondment was agreed unanimously by the rest of the party members on a Zoom call.
This now makes Ms Bacik the red-hot favourite and her nomination from her local base comes just over 24 hours after Alan Kelly was forced to resign as Labour leader.
It’s believed that all six TDs in Labour will now formally back Ms Bacik.
The momentum is overwhelmingly behind Ms Bacik now and there is highly unlikely to be any other contenders for the top job.
This means it will be more of a ‘coronation’ than a contest for the Labour leadership.
Ms Bacik scored a massive victory in last year’s Dublin Bay South bye-election when there was a Dáil vacancy left by the resignation of Fine Gael TD and former Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy.
The candidate picked by Fine Gael to replace Mr Murphy, James Geoghegan, was hot favourite, but Ms Bacik stunned some commentators when she beat him at the polls.
Party sources had earlier indicated to the Irish Mirror that the next leader would be either Ms Bacik, who was only elected a TD last summer, or Dublin Fingal TD, Duncan Smith.
However, Mr Smith ruled himself out and said: “I won't be putting myself forward."
Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin who lost out to Alan Kelly in a leadership race in 2020 also ruled himself out and said Ms Bacik has his "full support" to become the next Labour leader.
