NWCI announces committed feminist, Louise Lovett, as new Chairperson

Published: Thursday, June 04, 2020

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) is delighted to announce Louise Lovett as our new Chairperson. Her election, which took place through online voting, was announced at NWCI’s AGM webinar today, Thursday, 4th June.

Louise Lovett is the CEO of Longford Women’s Link (LWL), a local rural NGO and dynamic social enterprise which is based in Longford Town and which has been providing services to women and children in Longford/Midlands for the past 25 years. LWL has a long track record on issues such as childcare and violence against women, and were among the first community based women’s centres in Ireland.

Louise believes strongly in supporting the development of collective approaches to achieving equality, working in solidarity and making relevant the connections between the local, regional and the national levels.

 Prior to working in the community and voluntary sector, Louise gained extensive management and strategic planning experience working in the corporate sector for over 27 years. Louise was recognised for her work by being awarded the Image Magazine Social Entrepreneur Business Woman of the Year 2017.

After her election, Louise Lovett, said,

“It is a huge honour and privilege to be elected as Chairperson of Ireland’s national women’s representative organisation. As someone deeply committed to equality and women’s rights, I look forward to working with the Board and with NWCI’s Director Orla O’Connor and the staff of NWCI to progress the key issues facing women today in Ireland.”

“As we face into uncertain times with a new Government and the response we make to Covid-19, the voice of the women’s sector in Ireland, NWCI plays a central role on behalf of our members. We must ensure that women’s voices and experiences are at the centre of the debates on women’s health, the gender pay gap, direct provision, violence against women, recognition for women’s care roles, women and leadership, to name but some of the many issues that face women and need to be redressed, in 21st century Ireland.”

NWCI’s newly elected board members include:

- Denise Charlton, Deputy Chairperson, Immigrant Council of Ireland
- Ethel Buckley, SIPTU
- Margaret Martin, Women’s Aid
- Jennifer Okeke Campbell, Immigrant Council of Ireland
- Vivienne Glanville, National Collective of Community Based Women’s Networks
- Nuala Ryan, Irish Federation of University Women
- Shirley Scott, Dublin Rape Crisis Centre

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For more information, please contact Silke Paasche, Head of Communications, NWCI, Tel. 085 858 9104.

Note to Editors:

Louise Lovett is the CEO of Longford Women’s Link (LWL), a local rural NGO and dynamic social enterprise which is based in Longford Town and which has been providing services to women and children in Longford/Midlands for the past 25 years. LWL’s “Women Centred” services include accredited and non-accredited Education, Training, Group Support, Childcare, DV, Counselling, Female Entrepreneurship, Capacity Building and local/national advocacy. Louise believes strongly in supporting the development of collective approaches to achieving equality, working in solidarity and making relevant the connections between the local, regional and the national levels.

Prior to working in the community and voluntary sector, Louise gained extensive management and strategic planning experience working in the corporate sector for over 27 years. Louise was recognised for her work by being awarded the Image Magazine Social Entrepreneur Business Woman of the Year 2017.

Louise has a particular interest in having women’s voices heard and women’s perspective taken into account in decision making fora at local, regional and national level, not only with equal representation at the decision-making table but also critically via defined processes and structures which make it easy for women to feed into organisations and assemblies and really influence the decisions that are taken which impact them, their families and the wider community. Louise believes that it is vital that well established local organisations are well represented within decision making locally, regionally and nationally and LWL regularly brings local issues to the national level and vice versa, ensuring that the issues and voices of rural women from all strata of society continue to be heard and represented at national level.

Louise has completed three terms on the NWCI Board. This term will be her final term.

Currently Louise is Chairperson of Longford County Childcare Committee (LCCC), a member of Longford County Council’s Space Making Strategic Polic