SerpApi.Org
Former Dublin lord mayor Hazel Chu has confirmed she has reported an online threat made to her to the gardaí.
The Green Party’s deputy leader said she often reported incidents to gardaí in relation to her family’s safety – but this latest one appeared even more sinister than usual.
The councillor asked: ‘How are we supposed to encourage women to run in politics when this kind of thing happens?’
Threats stemming from her political life are not the only thing Ms Chu receives vitriol about. After revealing her breast cancer diagnosis last summer, the mother-of-one received a message from a nasty online troll.
She said: ‘I got someone who said to me, “I hope it gets you”. You ignore it because you know it is a minority [of people who say that].’
But despite the copious amounts of hate directed at her, she said it hasn’t put her off politics. She said that when she was first diagnosed, she didn’t consider stepping back because she ‘didn’t want to let the side down’.
She said: ‘For me, everything I wanted was hanging out with my daughter and family so I was thinking, “Should I be stepping down?”’ However, she added: ‘Then I was clear that I knew I would get better. There are not enough women in politics and [women] who look different in politics as well.’
Cllr Chu was speaking at the launch of the 2026 Very Pink Run, which will see three events taking place across Dublin, Kilkenny and Cork, between August 29 and September 6.
She will run a 10k with her mother, Stella, who was also diagnosed with breast cancer and is now recovering from a mastectomy.
‘It was caught early. She is good in that way. We’re very lucky in that regard,’ Cllr Chu said. ‘I can’t speak for her, but from what I have seen and spoke to her, there is a sense of loss, there always is, but she is doing tremendously well.
‘Mum is a tough woman – a migrant woman coming over and working three jobs, like, she is tough.’
Visit www.verypinkrun.ie to register.
