Verona Murphy (born 1970/1971) is an Irish independent politician who has been Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann since 2024, and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Wexford constituency since 2020.

[5] In 2018, the Workplace Relations Committee ruled against Murphy in finding that she had penalised an office worker in her 60s who had raised allegations of bullying against her, in her role as president of the Irish Road Haulage Association.

[6][13] She was selected as the Fine Gael candidate for the November 2019 Wexford by-election, which was called after the election of Mick Wallace to the European Parliament.

[14] During the by-election campaign, Murphy made remarks supporting Noel Grealish's attempts to block a direct provision centre being created in Oughterard, County Galway, and suggested that immigrants coming to Ireland were being "infiltrated by ISIS" and would need to be "deprogrammed".

This prompted the leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to comment directly on Murphy, stating the video was "bizarre" and "not party-approved".

[18] Several other top-ranking members of Fine Gael were also disturbed by her campaign, including Tánaiste Simon Coveney, who stated that Murphy's comments were wrong, and her choice of language about migrants was not acceptable.

[21] On election day, Murphy received 9,543 (23.8%) first preference votes and was eliminated on the fourth count, in third place behind Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) and George Lawlor (Labour).

The protest saw Murphy "[lose] control of the House for more than five and a half hours" on her first day as Ceann Comhairle, leading to some calls for her resignation.