INTERVIEW That She Had Been Adopted
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Page 22 Irish Daily Mail, Saturday, February 12, 2011 THE JASON O’TOOLE INTERVIEW that she had been adopted. ‘It’s when NE of the biggest PR blunders of the you’re a kid, you kind of half understand General Election campaign so far was it and you half don’t. But obviously Pat Rabbitte’s chauvinistic insinuation my parents said, “look, you’re our daugh- that Averil Power was only offered a key ter regardless”. role in the new Fianna Fáil front bench ‘And that’s the way it is. You’re brought up in the family — that’s my parents, because she was attractive. that my brothers and sister. I suppose OThe former Labour leader managed to insult every woman it’s not talked about that much, but an in the country along with Averil, with his remark that Micheál awful lot of people are adopted. Martin ‘might as well wander down Grafton Street’ and ‘I was born in 1978 and if you had a randomly select ‘good-looking women’ for what he claimed child and you weren’t married, that’s was a ‘stunt for photographic purposes’. what happened. So, there’s an awful lot What Pat may not have known, before making his comment, of people my age and maybe a few years is the remarkable story of an adopted daughter’s swift older than me who are adopted. We rise through the ranks in a male dominated world — and haven’t been very good, as a society, of in the face of extraordinary odds. Or that the tall woman actually talking about it.’ in the blue dress, pictured beside the Fianna Fáil leader on Averil’s political life began while still in The woman in blue: The picture that inspired Pat Rabbitte’s sexist comment the plinth of the Dáil, had grown up in a loving home — a Trinity. She says: ‘It was always my family of five children crowded into a dream to get into Trinity, but I didn’t small council house in Shankill, south think I’d make it.’ She left home at 18 Dublin — where a college education was to start college. But because her parents regarded as something to which only the both worked — her father as a bus driver privileged were entitled. and then a security guard, and her As an adopted girl, she proved, even as mother as a hairdresser — she didn’t a child, her determination to make it, qualify for a grant. They were ‘barely and was the first of her family to gradu- over the cut-off point’, she remembers. ate from secondary school. It was only ‘Because they worked, we weren’t enti- five years ago that she met her biological tled to a grant. I’m very independent and mother and discovered, to her delight I was able to pay for it myself. I looked and astonishment, that they have so many after myself. I’ve been working since I traits in common. After school came was 15 — supermarkets, packing bags Trinity to study social science, but college life was no picnic. She worked nights to pay the bills, steadfast in her conviction to get her degree. She was in a huge After that politics beckoned. But while the pundits may have scratched their heads and asked ‘who?’ — when they furore with a young saw the attractive 32-year-old at Micheál Martin’s side as the Fianna Fáil front bench was announced — Leinster House Lucinda Creighton insiders knew her well. She has spent her whole professional life in Government Buildings, first as a PA in the Taoiseach’s and stuff like that. And then in college, I office and then as a political adviser to worked in bars and nightclubs. Copper Mary Hanafin. Face Jacks! Everywhere basically. So then, after so many years in the ‘I didn’t go out all the time in college cut and thrust of politics, she must be because I used to go straight out of lectur- used to such sexist jibes. No, she says. It ers to work at night to pay the bills, and was actually new to her, but, on reflection, back to college the next day. I had a differ- she laughs, ‘Maybe it’s because I box that ent college experience to my friends.’ they’re afraid to say anything to me.’ The inequality of the system inspired The Fianna Fáil candidate who wants her to put herself forward as students’ to become the first ever woman TD for union president, with a campaign for Dublin North East explains that she fell radical changes in the grants system, in love with boxing, which is ‘good for and to end the ‘crude cut-off point’. It women for self-defence’, after first get- was after she was elected that she be- ting into a ring at a charity fight. came involved in a huge furore with the ‘I’m well able for Pat Rabbitte, if he young Lucinda Creighton, now standing wants to debate with me. But there is a for Fine Gael in Dublin South East. serious issue about this. It will put other Averil had refused to proclaim that the women off going for election if they think students union would call for a Yes vote people are just going to talk about what in the abortion referendum of the time, they look like rather than their suitabili- arguing that students had not been con- ty for the job. It’s not a nice thing to have sulted on the divisive issue. somebody say you’re only in a position But Miss Creighton and her colleagues because you look good in a photo. were outraged. Tensions ran so high that ‘It’s just not fair.’ posters attacking Averil were put up on It was not beauty pageants but the the campus, as our sister paper, the grim reality of the poverty that sur- Irish Mail on Sunday, revealed this week. rounded her as a child, that drove Averil She recalls: ‘It was very personal. It to her chosen career. She explains: ‘I got wasn’t terribly nice at the time. I didn’t political — as opposed to party political think we had any entitlement, as — because I grew up in a housing estate students’ union officers, to say that the and the rest of my family all left school union was pro-life or pro-choice.’ She adds: ‘I was an unwanted pregnancy, so I’m conscious of that, but I’ve never been strongly involved in the ‘My parents said, campaign, one way or the other. My own personal views are obviously influenced by the fact that I was adopted. I don’t “look, you’re our think you could but be, you know?’ But she understands that there are circumstances in which abortion is girl regardless” justifiable, such as rape or a health threat to the expecting mother’s own life. While at Trinity, Averil joined Fianna early. Most people in the area would’ve Fáil and then went to work as a PA in the been out working when they were 16. Taoiseach’s office for the Government’s ‘There was a very high level of unem- then chief whip, Mary Hanafin. The ployment at the time. One of the guys I future deputy Fianna Fáil leader was so grew up with was on drugs from a very impressed with Averil that she appointed young age and hung himself in Mountjoy. her as her special adviser when she Some of my friends had kids very young became Education Minister. and hadn’t the opportunities I’ve had. And Averil’s career followed into her ‘I was lucky — I finished off school and personal life when she married Fionnán got a place in Trinity. When I was in Sheahan, the Political Editor of the Irish Trinity, I said, “look, why not get involved Independent. in politics?” Because I wanted other But just when the story of her home life people to have the opportunities that gets intriguing, she holds up her hand I’ve had. The only way to change and laughs: ‘I really don’t want to talk anything is to get people from those about him at all. I’ll talk about anything communities actually involved in else. Really! Ask me anything else.’ politics. So, that’s why I got involved.’ But then, in her enthusiasm, almost She admits that her family were taken without realising it, she does. aback by her decision. And, ‘they still They first met at a Fianna Fáil Christ- think I’m mad!’ But she also had her per- mas party about ‘eight or nine years ago’, sonal turmoil. She was only ‘around ten she says. And they have been married or 12’ when her mother and father, Jen- since 2006. As of yet, there are no plans nifer and Paul, sat her down and revealed to start a family. Irish Daily Mail, Saturday, February 12, 2011 Page 23 Pat Rabbitte accused her of being a ‘good-looking girl from Grafton Street’. But Averil Power rose from humble beginnings on a council estate... discovered she was adopted... worked in Copper Face Jacks to get herself through Trinity... and found her birth mother, who lives in the constituency she now wants to represent... My best friend: Averil out with her dog Frankie the circumstances surround- Definitely ing her birth and adoption. All she knows is that it was ‘the norm’ for single mothers back then to make the painful choice of giving up their child.