O'Neill joined the Labour Party in 2024. She had previously served as a Green Party councillor in Dublin City Council, first elected in 1991. She currently serves as the Director of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), and has also worked as a lecturer in climate change policy and politics, and climate and energy law at DCU and Trinity.

I am running in this election because I am passionate about addressing the housing, environmental and climate challenges facing us in Ireland and in Waterford in particular. I have 30 years of experience in politics and public policy working for social change and advocating for sustainability. Without a change of government, we will not get the action we need to get more affordable and social housing, to address vacancy and land hoarding, or to end the loopholes that allow investors to buy properties and send profits abroad without even paying taxes. Nor will we get a fair energy transition that provides warmer homes for all and lower energy bills. A vote for Labour is a vote for fair climate action, decent wages, protections for workers and renters and improved public services in health, education and public transport.

The greatest issue facing Ireland right now is the cost of, and lack of, housing. Beyond this immediate crisis - which Labour would tackle with a range of policies to boost house building and tackle vacancy and dereliction - there is the hidden homelessness, crippling rents and the loss of skilled labour to emigration. We can't staff our schools and hospitals with nurses and teachers if we don't have affordable and accessible housing, so other critical public services suffer too. If we can't supply housing for construction workers, we can't build more houses. And behind the hidden housing crisis is an epidemic of mental health conditions and stress. The lack of affordable childcare places at a time when the cost of living is still rising which is putting working families under incredible strain. People's ability to cope is being stretched to its limit. We need a new government that cares about people, that cares about workers and cares about public services.

When I'm elected to the Dáil, I will first of all raise the neglect of the current government that is willing to throw money at everything and everyone but cannot find €12m in loose change to fund the runway completion at Waterford Regional Airport. This is proof of the GP/FF/FG government's Dublin bias and inequitable spending record in the south east and Waterford particularly, where the population is expected to grow by 30,000 by 2040. This imbalance speaks to the dysfunctional and politically skewed planning and investment strategy of the current government where Waterford is to receive less than 50% of the per capita investment that will go to the Dublin region under the National Planning Framework (and presumably the next NDP). Without investment in water treatment and public transport, for example, we will not be able to build the housing required to facilitate population growth which in turn will drive economic growth in the region. It is time to elect public representatives that care about Waterford and that have the team and the drive to deliver change.