During the same decade she was legal advisor to and a founding member of the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform. She left this position in 1979, to join RTÉ as a journalist and presenter, during one period as a reporter and presenter for their "Today Tonight" programme. However, in RTÉ, she and Alex White (then a TV producer and later a Labour Party TD) were attacked and criticised by a group led by Eoghan Harris, associated with the Workers' Party, over what they perceived as her bias towards republican groups in the North. McAleese was critical of the Provisional IRA, but believed it was important to hear their side of the story; she opposed the Harris faction's support for , which she believed was an attack on free speech. In 1981, she returned to the Reid Professorship, but continued to work part-time for RTÉ for a further four years. In 1987, she returned to Queen's University, to become Director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies. She stood, unsuccessfully, as a Fianna Fáil candidate in the Dublin South-East constituency at the 1987 general election, receiving 2,243 votes (5.9%).