Pat Buckley (50) looked vulnerable in Cork East until the Sinn Féin surge helped him retain the seat he first won in 2016.
A thoughtful and impassioned speaker on mental health issues, his political career has been driven to a large extent by the suicide of two of his brothers about whom he has spoken in the Dáil.
Their deaths prompted him to found a suicide-prevention charity the Let’s Get Together Foundation and he is a member of a number of local community organisations.
He is the party’s spokesman on mental health and suicide prevention.
The 50-year-old married father of two who was educated at Waterford Institute of Technology hails from Midleton, where he first served as a town councillor before election to Cork County Council.
In 2017 he was charged with a public order offence for verbally abusing gardaí while drunk when he was told to turn down loud music at a child’s party. He subsequently apologised for the incident.
