General Election Candidates Elaine Dunne and Cllr. Linda Nelson Murray with Marc O’Dwyer, Chair ISME.
Photo by Siobhan Taylor
13th November 2024: Two members of the National Council of ISME have been nominated for run for Dáil Eireann in the forthcoming General Election, scheduled for Friday 29th November 2024. Elaine Dunne has been selected by Fianna Fáil to represent the party in the Dublin Rathdown constituency, while Linda Nelson Murray has been selected by Fine Gael to represent the party in the Meath West constituency. ISME Chair Marc O’Dwyer wished the two ISME National Council members best of luck with their campaign and election.
Linda Nelson Murray joined the National Council of ISME in 2023. She is a proud mother of two from Navan and now living in Kilmessan, Co Meath. She is a busy Fine Gael County Councillor having been elected on her first run out and obtained a second seat for Fine Gael for the first time in 25 years. She has spent the last five years as a Parliamentary Assistant to Damien English in Dáil Eireann working on local and national issues and prides herself on getting the job done.
Her past includes 17 years in the soft drinks industry firstly as Marketing Manager in the Gleeson Group (Tipperary Water, Finches etc) and secondly as National Sales & Marketing Manager for Webtech NI based in Enniskillen. She and her husband opened The Zone Activity Centre in Navan and followed that with Huckleberry’s Den five years later. They employ 25 people in Navan, Co Meath. She has been involved with Meath Chamber and Meath Partnership and has been a Director of the Alliance For Insurance Reform because of the extreme difficulty businesses within the sector and other sectors had in obtaining insurance and finding a fair price for it. She was one of the founding members of PALI (Play Activity & Leisure Ireland) and became CEO of the organisation. She continues to work in the interest of all 110 of their members with the group and recognises that there is still much opportunity to make Insurance fairer for all. She is a director with Boyne Valley Tourism, Skane Valley Council, sits on IPB (Irish Public Body Mutual Insurance) and on the board of St. Ultan’s School in Navan.
Elaine Dunne joined the ISME National Council in 2021 and is currently ISME’s secretary. Elaine operates two Early Years services in the South Dublin area. One is full day care facility and one part-time service providing a service to eighty children in total. Elaine has worked in the Early Years sector for over thirty years. She is the Founder and Chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers since 2019 (FECP). FECP joined with other representative bodies to form the Together for Early Years Committee (TFEY), which organised the protest of 33,000 Early Years Providers, Educators and parents in February 2020. Elaine works tirelessly for the Early Years sector, always engaging and supporting FECP members with their daily struggles of their profession.
Marc O’Dwyer, Chair of ISME said: “ISME is extremely proud to have two of our National Council members of the calibre of Elaine Dunne and Linda Murray standing in the General Election. On behalf of the Board, National Council, and the wider membership of ISME, I wish them every success in the weeks ahead.”
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Issued on behalf of ISME by Heneghan
For information
Nigel Heneghan – (086) 258 7206 – nigel@heneghan.ie
Rory Sweeney – (086) 897 6442 – rory@heneghan.ie
