Ruairi quinn biography of martin

It was clear to me that an independent Irish foreign policy think tank was as necessary then as it was when it was established. Quinn continued: "Five years on, I am pleased to say that much progress has been made; the Institute's finances have been secured, audiences have vastly expanded, the Board is now gender balanced and the Institute's profile is higher than ever before.

Today the Institute is thriving, and our mission is even more important in a world that is ever more connected, facing grave challenges which can only be solved with innovative, collaborative approaches. He also helped to improve the budgetary situation. The Quinns were prosperous merchants in NewryCounty Downthen moved to Dublin in the s, where Quinn's father built a successful business career.

Quinn was educated at St Michael's College and Blackrock Collegeboth situated in Dublin, where he was academically successful and an outstanding athlete and a member of Blackrock College's Senior Cup rugby team. From an early age, he was interested in art and won the all-Ireland Texaco Children's Art competition. In the following years, Quinn was a leading student radical in UCD demanding reform of the university's structures and the old fashioned architectural course that then prevailed.

He travelled in Europe and became a europhilewhich was to be a defining ruairi quinn biography of martin of his political career. He and his first wife had a son and a daughter. He married again in and has a son with his second wife, Liz Allman, an architect, whose family came from MilltownCounty Kerry. He then became an architect with Dublin Corporation in The party organisation was largely moribund since the general electionas Browne had been ill and little work had been done locally.

Following the election, Quinn began to rebuild the Labour Party in Dublin South-East with his mainly youthful supporters. He won a council seat on Dublin Corporation at the local elections in in the Pembroke — Rathmines local electoral area and took a leading role in the Labour Party group on the city council. Quinn was a partner in an architecture firm from to He served as environment spokesperson for the Labour Party and was very close to the party leader, Frank Cluskeywhom he had voted for in the leadership contest of Quinn lost his seat at the general election but was elected to the 15th Seanad on the Industrial and Commercial Panel.

At Clontarf Garda Station, Quinn provided a urine sample, which showed him to have an mg of alcohol for ml of urine. Inhe became Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. Between andhe served as Minister for Labour. From tohe was appointed Minister for the Public Serviceheld in addition to the Labour portfolio. He resigned as a minister when Labour left the government in January Inhe became deputy leader of the Labour Party.

He was director of elections for Mary Robinson 's successful presidential election campaign in In JulyQuinn adopted a successful employment policy called the Back to Work Allowance, which targeted the long-term unemployed. This allowed unemployed people to retain their unemployment benefits on a sliding scale for a number of years, while setting up a business or taking up a job.

Quinn implemented reform of industrial strategy and reorganised the industrial development agencies. He also introduced the Community Employment Programme to provide activity and involvement for unemployed workers inwhich proved to be particularly successful. Quinn was seen as a moderniser in economic terms, but who tried and failed to close the Irish Steel company in HaulbowlineCounty Cork.

He records in his autobiography that he still cannot understand why that Government fell. He took a relatively conservative line as finance minister, conscious of his position as the first Labour Party Minister for Finance in Ireland. The Irish economy continued to perform, while inflation and the government finances were kept under firm control.

Ruairi quinn biography of martin: Educated at Belvedere College, Dublin,

Unemployment gradually fell and public debt levels improved. During Quinn's tenure as Minister for Finance, the overall tax burden in Ireland the ratio of tax revenue, including pay-related social insurance levies, to gross national product fell from He achieved this by limiting current government spending to grow by 6. Under Quinn, the General Government Balance went from a deficit of 2.

The ruairi quinn biography of martin before Quinn became an economic Minister inIrish economic growth was 2. Init was The unemployment rate fell from Quinn served as the president of the Ecofin Council of the European Union inand worked to accelerate the launch of the European Single Currencywhile securing Ireland's qualification for the eurozone.

At the general election the Labour Party returned to opposition, winning only 17 of its outgoing 33 seats. Many other ministers of the Labour Party were under significant pressure from the media particularly the Irish Independent concerning allegations of cronyism "jobs for the boys" and abusing the privileges of office. In comparison, the opposition under Bertie Ahern placed heavy reliance on cutting tax rates as opposed to widening tax bands favoured by Quinn.

Ahern also claimed that credit for the country's improving economy was due to his earlier term in government. In OctoberDick Spring resigned as leader of the Labour Party following an unsuccessful campaign by the Labour Party candidate, Adi Rochein the Irish presidential election. Quinn defeated Brendan Howlin to become the new leader.

Inthe Labour Party and Democratic Left merged. Proinsias De Rossa of the latter party became the largely symbolic party president, while Quinn remained as leader of the party. Quinn fought that election on an independent platform, although he indicated a preference to enter government with Fine Gaelwith which he had served with in the Rainbow coalition era.

Quinn's strategy was predicated on the Labour Party holding the balance of power and keeping a distance from the two bigger parties. This underestimated the attraction for the electorate of the outgoing Ahern Government, which had enjoyed extraordinary economic growth and prosperity. Under the leadership of Michael NoonanFine Gael lost 23 seats, being reduced to 31 seats, their worst performance in decades.

Quinn himself was re-elected on the last count by votes. Accepting that he would now be in opposition for another term, Quinn announced that he would not seek re-election for another six-year term as leader of the Labour Party, at the end of August In OctoberQuinn's term as party leader expired and he retired as Labour leader, being replaced in a leadership election by Pat Rabbitte.

When Rabbitte resigned as party leader inQuinn supported the successful candidacy of Eamon Gilmore. His public support of Gilmore, where he also brought the endorsement of all the Dublin City Councillors in his area, was seen as instrumental in discouraging other candidates from entering the race. He eventually backed down after pressure was put on him to give up the pension.

Quinn is also vice-president and Treasurer of the Party of European Socialists. Inhis political memoirStraight Leftwas published. Quinn contributed to the successful second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in September and continued to be an office holder with the Party of European Socialists.

Ruairi quinn biography of martin: Quinn was one of

In SeptemberQuinn was appointed as the Labour Party's national director of elections for the general election by Gilmore. He had been selected along with Kevin Humphreys to be a candidate for Labour in that election. We are looking for efficiencies in the system at third level. I have said to Brendan Howlin that I will deliver. In OctoberQuinn announced the phasing out of the current Junior Certificate programme over the next eight years, to be replaced by a school-based model of continuous assessment.

On 12 OctoberQuinn, speaking to an audience at an anniversary celebration for St Kilian's German Schoolsaid the "demons of nationalism" and "chauvinism" embedded in our cultures would only stay under control if there was a deeper European culture. He went on to say they "will only stay in the place where they belong if we have more Europe, if we have a deeper Europe, if we have a wider Europe".

On 29 JanuaryQuinn launched Ireland's first national plan to tackle bullying in schools, including cyberbullying. The Action Plan on Bullying set out 12 clear actions on how to prevent and tackle bullying. On 2 JulyRuairi Quinn announced his decision to resign as Minister for Education and Skills, which became effective following the cabinet reshuffle on 11 July.

SinceQuinn has sat on various boards, including as chairperson of the Irish Architectural Archive —and as a director of the Institute of International and European Affairs. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. His sense of politics seems also to have been influenced by his architectural background, a desire to create elegant public spaces and fine, affordable housing.

But somehow this compassionate, erudite, reflective man seems to have lost his way, to the extent that there seems to be no appreciation on his part that he had done so. Maybe it was a reaction to the eccentricities and self-centredness of Noel Browne, which he chronicles well and which, clearly, he found distasteful. Did he, as a reaction to Browne, simply find himself in the camp of Noel Browne's adversaries in the Labour Party, thereby losing sight of what he had set out to achieve?

His early preoccupation on being appointed Minister for Enterprise and Employment in early was to find an adviser "who would be acceptable to the business community". Hardly surprising, perhaps, since he opted to call his department not "Employment and Enterprise" but the other way around, to signal his focus on enterprise. He justifies this on the grounds that there can be no employment without enterprise but if the priority is enterprise, necessarily employment comes second, at best.

Ruairi quinn biography of martin: When interviewing the former Taoiseach for

He describes life as a cabinet minister in familiar terms, being overwhelmed by the weight of issues and official paper, the urgency of decision making, the calculation of party-political outcomes. One can understand how strategic policy-making gets lost in the helter-skelter of day-to-day crises, but would you not have thought a reflective mind would note, even in retrospect, how easily one can be distracted from what matters?

Take the crisis that led to the fall of the Albert Reynolds government in November