Carmel Hanna

Infobox Politician | name=Carmel Hanna, MLA

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term_start=1998
term_end=
predecessor=
successor=
birth_date=birth date and age|1946|3|26
birth_place=Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland
constituency=Belfast South
party=Social Democratic and Labour Party
office=MLA
spouse=Eamon Hanna
website= [http://www.sdlp.ie/party/carmelhanna.shtm Hanna SDLP]

Cllr Carmel Hanna MLA (born Carmel McAleenan 26 March, 1946) in Warrenpoint, County Down Northern Ireland) is a Northern Irish politician. She is a member of the SDLP and an MLA for South Belfast.

Early life and nursing career

The seventh of nine children, her father was a factory worker in a local packaging plant. She was educated at Star of the Sea Primary School in Warrenpoint, and Our Lady's Grammar School in Newry.

She came to Belfast to train as a nurse at Belfast City Hospital and qualified there as Registered Nurse and later at the Royal Maternity Hospital as a State Certified Midwife. She worked in hospitals in Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland (intensive care unit), Great Britain and in mainland Europe.

After living and working abroad (which gave her a long term interest in third world development), she returned to Northern Ireland to work as a staff nurse in the Casualty department at the Mater Hospital, Crumlin Road, at the height of the Troubles. Her experiences there made an indelible impression and strengthened her belief that political change must be made by peaceful means. She was active in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Campaign of the early 1970s.

She married Eamon Hanna in 1973. They have four adult children and they have lived and worked in Belfast, Dublin, Galway and the United States. In 1987 Carmel returned to work as a nurse and subsequently transferred to social services working for the South & East Belfast Trust assessing domiciliary care for the elderly. She also became an officer for her trade union, NIPSA.

Political career

Carmel first joined the SDLP in 1972 and was an ordinary member for many years as well as being secretary and committee member of the Galway and Dublin SDLP support groups. She became chairperson of her local branch in 1996, in which year she was also an SDLP candidate in a Belfast City Council by election and Northern Ireland Forum elections.

She was elected to Belfast City Council for the Balmoral area in 1997. Her committee duties include Planning, Health & Environment and Cultural Diversity.

She was elected to Northern Ireland Assembly in June 1998.Hanna was Deputy Chair of the Environment Committee in the Northern Ireland Assembly until December 2001.

She made her own bit of political history in December 2001 when she became the first ever Northern Ireland woman to be appointed a Stormont Minister. She held the Employment & Learning portfolio until the Assembly’s suspension. During that period she:

*Reformed third level student funding which NUS/USI has acknowledged as being the fairest in the UK and which increased grants for the least well off
*Put family-friendly legislation on the statute book, giving statutory paternity leave and extended maternity leave for both natural and adoptive parents, as well as the right to unpaid parental leave and flexible working time for parents with children under five and children up to eighteen with a disability.
*Developed radical initiatives to enhance employability and tackle long-term unemployment
*Gave life-long learning increased status and resources to tackle adult literacy and numeracy issues.

She also chaired the All-Party Group on International Development in the Assembly, and has been involved with an adult literacy initiative and a strategy being developed on long-term employability.Her stated major political aims are:

*Preserving and enhancing South Belfast’s townscape character
*Improving health, education and social services
*Retaining maternity services at the Jubilee hospital
*Working on social justice and cultural issues
*Working for social inclusion

External links

* [http://www.sdlp.ie/party/carmelhanna.shtm SDLP profile]