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Tag Archives: Joe Higgins


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Birth of Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD for Dublin West

Ruth Coppinger, Irish politician and member of the Socialist Party, and Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency, is born in Dublin on April 18, 1967.

Coppinger is a member of Fingal County Council for the Mulhuddart local electoral area from 2003 to 2014. She is co-opted to the council in 2003, replacing Joe Higgins, and is elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. She is an unsuccessful candidate for the Socialist Party at the 2011 Dublin West by-election.

Following victory in the 2014 Dublin West by-election, Coppinger joins her party colleague Joe Higgins in the Dáil. After being elected, she calls for a mass campaign of opposition to water charges being implemented by the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition.

In November 2014, Coppinger calls for the gradual nationalisation of U.S. multinationals to prevent job losses. In response, Fianna Fáil’s jobs spokesperson Dara Calleary calls the idea “reckless and ludicrous,” as it would “place a massive burden on taxpayers and the public finances.”

In September 2015, Coppinger joins homeless families from Blanchardstown, in occupying a NAMA-controlled property as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the housing crisis. In October 2015, she joins families in their occupation of a show house in her constituency, to protest the lack of availability of affordable social housing. She also supports the tenants of Tyrrelstown, who are made homeless when a Goldman Sachs vulture fund sells their houses.

Coppinger is re-elected to the Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election, this time under the Anti-Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit banner. On March 10. 2016, at the first sitting of the 32nd Dáil, she nominates Richard Boyd Barrett for the office of Taoiseach, quoting James Connolly from a hundred years previously when she says, “The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system. It must go,” and declaring, “We will not vote for the identical twin candidates” of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil after they “imposed austerity.” On April 6, 2016, following the failure of the Dáil to elect a Taoiseach at that first sitting, she is nominated for the role of Taoiseach, becoming the first female nominee in the history of the state.

In 2018 Coppinger praises the MeToo movement for exposing patterns of abuse and systemic inequality. However, she also notes the limitations of achieving justice through traditional channels and calls for a stronger focus on combating intimate partner violence and societal tolerance of such abuse.

In April 2018, in the lead-up to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, Coppinger, along with her colleague Paul Murphy, holds up a Repeal sign during leader’s questions and is reprimanded by the Ceann Comhairle. She is an advocate for abortion rights in Ireland, and is a founding member of ROSA, a movement for reproductive justice in Ireland. Earlier, in 2016, she tables the private members’ motion to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

In November 2018, Coppinger protests in the Dáil against the conduct of a rape trial in Ireland. During the trial, the defence team, as part of their argument that the sex had been consensual, states that the 17-year-old victim had worn a thong with a lace front. The defendant is subsequently found not guilty. During a sitting of the Dáil, Coppinger holds up a similar pair of underwear and admonishes the conduct of the trial, suggesting victim blaming tactics had been used and suggests this is a routine occurrence in Irish courts. She calls on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to support her party’s bill that would increase sex education in Irish schools and provide additional training to the Irish judiciary and jurors on how to handle cases of rape. Varadkar responds that victims should not be blamed for what happens to them, irrespective of how they are dressed, where they are or if they have consumed alcohol.

In 2019 Coppinger sponsors a private member’s bill – the Domestic Violence (No-contact order) (Amendment) Bill 2019. The bill lapses with the dissolution of the Dáil and Seanad.

At the general election in February 2020, Coppinger is defeated in the Dublin West constituency. She unsuccessfully contests the 2020 Seanad election for the National University of Ireland constituency.

In June 2024, Coppinger is elected to Fingal County Council for the Castleknock local electoral area on the 7th Count. At the 2024 Irish general election, she is re-elected to the Dáil.

Coppinger is an advocate of secularism and believes in abolishing both the Angelus and the Dáil prayer, viewing them as relics of an outdated intertwining of religion and governance. She supports the separation of Church and State, criticising the Catholic Church‘s historical influence in education and health, as well as its financial privileges, including exemptions from accountability under regulations like SIPO. She has called for the requisitioning of Church lands and property, citing the Church’s failure to meet commitments to abuse victims and the necessity of addressing historical injustices.

On drug policy, Coppinger supports decriminalisation and endorses the Portuguese model, which treats addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal matter. She emphasises the hypocrisy of criminalising drug use while overlooking the societal harm caused by alcohol and advocates for expanding access to medicinal cannabis, criticising the political inertia in addressing this need.

In 2013, during referendum to abolish the Irish senate, Coppinger campaigns for a yes vote, calling the institution elitist and undemocratic. However, in 2020, following the loss of her Dáil seat, she runs unsuccessfully for a seat in the Senate. Challenged by the Irish Examiner on this, she states that so long as the Senate continues to exist, it should be used to further progressive causes.

Coppinger lives in Mulhuddart and is a secondary school teacher. Her eldest brother, Eugene Coppinger, serves on Fingal County Council from 2011 to 2019.


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Birth of Tony Gregory, Independent Politician & Teachta Dála

Tony Gregory, Irish independent politician and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency from 1982 to 2009, is born on December 5, 1947, in Ballybough on Dublin‘s Northside.

Gregory is the second child of Anthony Gregory, warehouseman in Dublin Port, and Ellen Gregory (née Judge). He wins a Dublin Corporation scholarship to the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School. He later goes on to University College Dublin (UCD), where he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree and later a Higher Diploma in Education, funding his degree from summer work at the Wall’s ice cream factory in Acton, London. Initially working at Synge Street CBS, he later teaches history and French at Coláiste Eoin, an Irish language secondary school in Booterstown. His students at Synge Street and Coláiste Eoin include John Crown, Colm Mac Eochaidh, Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí.

Gregory becomes involved in republican politics, joining Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1964. In UCD he helps found the UCD Republican Club, despite pressure from college authorities, and becomes involved with the Dublin Housing Action Committee. Within the party he is a supporter of Wicklow Republican Seamus Costello. Costello, who is a member of Wicklow County Council, emphasises involvement in local politics and is an opponent of abstentionism. Gregory sides with the Officials in the 1970 split within Sinn Féin. Despite having a promising future within the party, he resigns in 1972 citing frustration with ideological infighting in the party. Later, Costello, who had been expelled by Official Sinn Féin, approaches him and asks him to join his new party, the Irish Republican Socialist Party. He leaves the party after Costello’s assassination in 1977. He is briefly associated with the Socialist Labour Party.

Gregory contests the 1979 local elections for Dublin City Council as a “Dublin Community Independent” candidate. At the February 1982 general election, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as an Independent TD. On his election he immediately achieves national prominence through the famous “Gregory Deal,” which he negotiates with Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey. In return for supporting Haughey as Taoiseach, he is guaranteed a massive cash injection for his inner-city Dublin constituency, an area beset by poverty and neglect.

Although Gregory is reviled in certain quarters for effectively holding a government to ransom, his uncompromising commitment to the poor is widely admired. Fianna Fáil loses power at the November 1982 general election, and many of the promises made in the Gregory Deal are not implemented by the incoming Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition.

Gregory is involved in the 1980s in tackling Dublin’s growing drug problem. Heroin had largely been introduced to Dublin by the Dunne criminal group, based in Crumlin, in the late 1970s. In 1982 a report reveals that 10% of 15- to 24-year-olds have used heroin at least once in the north inner city. The spread of heroin use also leads to a sharp increase in petty crime. He confronts the government’s handling of the problem as well as senior Gardaí, for what he sees as their inadequate response to the problem. He co-ordinates with the Concerned Parents Against Drugs group in 1986, who protest and highlight the activities of local drug dealers and defend the group against accusations by government Ministers Michael Noonan and Barry Desmond that it is a front for the Provisional IRA. He believes that the solution to the problem is multi-faceted and works on a number of policy level efforts across policing, service co-ordination and rehabilitation of addicts. In 1995 in an article in The Irish Times, he proposes what would later become the Criminal Assets Bureau, which is set up in 1996, catalysed by the death of journalist Veronica Guerin. His role in its development is later acknowledged by then Minister for Justice Nora Owen.

Gregory also advocates for Dublin’s street traders. After attending a sit-down protest with Sinn Féin Councillor Christy Burke, and future Labour Party TD Joe Costello on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in defence of a street trader, he, Burke and four others are arrested and charged with obstruction and threatening behaviour. He spends two weeks in Mountjoy Prison after refusing to sign a bond to keep the peace.

Gregory remains a TD from 1982 and, although he never holds a government position, remains one of the country’s most recognised Dáil deputies. He always refuses to wear a tie in the Dáil chamber stating that many of his constituents could not afford them.

Gregory dies on January 2, 2009, following a long battle with cancer. Following his death, tributes pour in from politicians from every party, recognising his contribution to Dublin’s north inner city. During his funeral, politicians from the Labour Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are told that although they speak highly of Gregory following his death, during his time in the Dáil he had been excluded by many of them and that they were not to use his funeral as a “photo opportunity.” He is buried on January 7, with the Socialist Party‘s Joe Higgins delivering the graveside oration.

Colleagues of Tony Gregory support his election agent, Dublin City Councillor Maureen O’Sullivan, at the 2009 Dublin Central by-election in June. She wins the subsequent by-election.


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Birth of Joe Higgins, Politician & Member of the European Parliament

Joe Higgins, a former Socialist Party politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency from 1997 to 2007 and from 2011 to 2016, is born in Lispole, County Kerry, on May 20, 1949. He serves as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2009 to 2011.

One of nine children of a small farming family, Higgins goes to school in the Dingle Christian Brothers School, and after finishing he enrolls in the priesthood. As part of his training, he is sent to a Catholic seminary school in Minnesota, United States, in the 1960s. He becomes politicised at the time of anti-Vietnam War protests and the civil rights movement. He is a brother of Liam Higgins, who plays football with the Kerry GAA senior team in the 1960s and 1970s. He is bilingual in English and Irish.

Higgins returns to Ireland and attends University College Dublin (UCD), studying English and French. For several years he is a teacher in several Dublin inner city schools. While at university he joins the Labour Party and becomes active in the Militant Tendency, an entryist Trotskyist group that operates within the Labour Party. Throughout his time in the Labour Party, he is a strong opponent of coalition politics, along with TDs Emmet Stagg and Michael D. Higgins. He is elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party by the membership in the 1980s. In 1989, he is expelled alongside 13 other members of Militant Tendency by party leader Dick Spring. The group eventually leaves the party and forms Militant Labour, which becomes the Socialist Party in 1996.

Higgins spends over half his salary on the Socialist Party and causes he supports. He is elected to Dublin County Council in 1991 for the Mulhuddart electoral area and is until 2003 a member of Fingal County Council. In 1996, he campaigns against local authority water and refuse charges and contests the Dublin West by-election, losing narrowly to Brian Lenihan Jnr.

Higgins is first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1997 Irish general election and re-elected at the 2002 general election. He loses his seat at the 2007 general election but regains it at the 2011 general election. From 2002 to 2007, he is a member of the Technical Group in the Dáil which consists of various independent TDs, Sinn Féin and the Green Party grouped together for better speaking time.

Higgins speaks out against the Iraq War while a TD, and addresses the Dublin leg of the March 20, 2003 International Day of Action. He is also prominent in the successful 2005 campaign to bring Nigerian school student Olukunle Eluhanla back to Ireland after he had been deported. He remains an opponent of the deportation policy.

Higgins uses his platform in the Dáil to raise the issue of exploitation of migrant and guest workers in Ireland. He and others claim that many companies are paying migrants below the minimum wage and, in some cases, not paying overtime rates. He expresses opposition in the Dáil to the jailing of the Rossport Five in July 2005. He raises the outsourcing of jobs by Irish Ferries in the Dáil in November 2005, requesting new legislation to regulate what he describes as “these modern slavers.”

Higgins successfully contests the 2009 European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency, beating two incumbents, Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin and Eoin Ryan of Fianna Fáil, for the third and final seat. He is elected on the same day to Fingal County Council for the Castleknock electoral area, topping the poll. As Irish law prohibits politicians having a dual mandate, he vacates the council seat in July 2009 and is replaced by Matt Waine. He was a member of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (EUL–NGL) group in the European Parliament, the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, and the delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia. He is also a substitute member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Petitions and the delegation for relations with the Mercosur countries. Paul Murphy replaces him as an MEP when he is re-elected to the Dáil in 2011.

Higgins is elected again as TD for Dublin West at the 2011 Irish general election. He wins the third seat (of four) with 8,084 first preference votes. In his first speech in the 31st Dáil, he opposed the nomination of Fine Gael‘s Enda Kenny as Taoiseach. On May 4, 2011, Kenny is forced to apologise to Higgins in the Dáil after falsely accusing him of being a supporter of Osama bin Laden after Higgins offers criticism of his assassination by the CIA. He had asked the Taoiseach, “Is assassination only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden?”

In the Dáil, Higgins accuses Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore of doing nothing for the 14 Irish citizens being held “incommunicado” by Israel in November 2011. In December 2011, he describes as a disgraceful campaign of intimidation the fines imposed by the government on people who are unable to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget and says to Enda Kenny that he will be “the new Captain Boycott of austerity in this country.” He asks that Minister for Finance Michael Noonan provide EBS staff with the 13th month end-of-year payment they are being denied.

In September 2012, Higgins publicly disagrees with former Socialist Party colleague Clare Daly, saying it is “unfortunate” that she has resigned from the party, but that it is impossible for Daly under the banner of the Socialist Party to continue to offer political support to Mick Wallace, who is at that time embroiled in scandal.

Higgins announces in April 2014 that he will not contest the next Dáil election. At the time he states his belief that the “baton of elected representation” should be carried by another generation of Socialist Party politicians — like Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy.


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Birth of Clare Daly, Politician & Member of the European Parliament

Clare Daly, Irish politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Ireland for the Dublin constituency since July 2019, is born in Newbridge, County Kildare, on April 16, 1968. She is a member of Independents 4 Change, part of The Left in the European Parliament – GUE/NGL.

Daly’s father, Kevin Daly, was a colonel in the Irish Army, where he was Director of Signals. She is an atheist, while her brother and an uncle are Catholic priests. She studies accountancy at Dublin City University (DCU). She is twice elected president of the DCU Students’ Union and is active in the students’ movement as a campaigner for abortion rights and information. On leaving college she takes a job in the catering section of Aer Lingus on a low wage and becomes SIPTU‘s shop steward at Dublin Airport when the airline is engaged in extensive cost-cutting and outsourcing.

In the 1980s Daly is a member of the Labour Party as a teenager. A member of Labour’s Militant Tendency, she is expelled alongside Joe Higgins and other members after being accused of being Trotskyists infiltrating the party using the tactic of entryism. At first calling themselves Militant Labour, in 1996 they form the Socialist Party. In the 1999 Irish local elections she is elected as a Fingal County Councillor for the Swords area, a position she holds for 12 years. She is elected as a Socialist Party TD for the Dublin North constituency at the 2011 Irish general election.

Since 2012, Daly has formed a close political association with Mick Wallace. After Wallace is condemned by left-wing TDs following the revelation his building company had avoided €2.1 million in taxes, she resigns from the Socialist Party in August 2012 in protest and redesignates herself as a United Left Alliance TD, before switching party again in 2015 to her current party, Independents 4 Change.

At the 2019 European Parliament elections, Daly is elected for the Dublin constituency. Since becoming an MEP, she has gained international attention for her foreign policy views, particularly regarding Russia and China, which have been the subject of controversy and criticism.

A report by The Irish Times in April 2022 describes Daly and Wallace’s media profile in China, and discusses how since January 2021, Daly has been featured in more Chinese-language news articles than any other Irish person, while Wallace has the second most Chinese-language news articles. In April 2022, Daly and Wallace initiate defamation proceedings against RTÉ.

On September 15, 2022, Daly is one of sixteen MEPs who vote against condemning President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua for human rights violations, in particular the arrest of Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.


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Death of Tony Gregory, Independent Politician & TD

Tony Gregory, Irish independent politician and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Central constituency from 1982 to 2009, dies in Dublin on January 2, 2009.

Gregory is born on December 5, 1947, in Ballybough on Dublin’s Northside, the second child of Anthony Gregory, warehouseman in Dublin Port, and Ellen Gregory (née Judge). He wins a Dublin Corporation scholarship to the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School. He later goes on to University College Dublin (UCD), where he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree and later a Higher Diploma in Education, funding his degree from summer work at the Wall’s ice cream factory in Acton, London. Initially working at Synge Street CBS, he later teaches history and French at Coláiste Eoin, an Irish language secondary school in Booterstown. His students at Synge Street and Coláiste Eoin include John Crown, Colm Mac Eochaidh, Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí.

Gregory becomes involved in republican politics, joining Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1964. In UCD he helps found the UCD Republican Club, despite pressure from college authorities, and becomes involved with the Dublin Housing Action Committee. Within the party he is a supporter of Wicklow Republican Seamus Costello. Costello, who is a member of Wicklow County Council, emphasises involvement in local politics and is an opponent of abstentionism. Gregory sides with the Officials in the 1970 split within Sinn Féin. Despite having a promising future within the party, he resigns in 1972 citing frustration with ideological infighting in the party. Later, Costello, who had been expelled by Official Sinn Féin, approaches him and asks him to join his new party, the Irish Republican Socialist Party. He leaves the party after Costello’s assassination in 1977. He is briefly associated with the Socialist Labour Party.

Gregory contests the 1979 local elections for Dublin City Council as a “Dublin Community Independent” candidate. At the February 1982 general election, he is elected to Dáil Éireann as an Independent TD. On his election he immediately achieves national prominence through the famous “Gregory Deal,” which he negotiates with Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey. In return for supporting Haughey as Taoiseach, he is guaranteed a massive cash injection for his inner-city Dublin constituency, an area beset by poverty and neglect.

Although Gregory is reviled in certain quarters for effectively holding a government to ransom, his uncompromising commitment to the poor is widely admired. Fianna Fáil loses power at the November 1982 general election, and many of the promises made in the Gregory Deal are not implemented by the incoming Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition.

Gregory is involved in the 1980s in tackling Dublin’s growing drug problem. Heroin had largely been introduced to Dublin by the Dunne criminal group, based in Crumlin, in the late 1970s. In 1982 a report reveals that 10% of 15- to 24-year-olds have used heroin at least once in the north inner city. The spread of heroin use also leads to a sharp increase in petty crime. He confronts the government’s handling of the problem as well as senior Gardaí, for what he sees as their inadequate response to the problem. He co-ordinates with the Concerned Parents Against Drugs group in 1986, who protest and highlight the activities of local drug dealers and defend the group against accusations by government Ministers Michael Noonan and Barry Desmond that it is a front for the Provisional IRA. He believes that the solution to the problem is multi-faceted and works on a number of policy level efforts across policing, service co-ordination and rehabilitation of addicts. In 1995 in an article in The Irish Times, he proposes what would later become the Criminal Assets Bureau, which is set up in 1996, catalysed by the death of journalist Veronica Guerin. His role in its development is later acknowledged by then Minister for Justice Nora Owen.

Gregory also advocates for Dublin’s street traders. After attending a sit-down protest with Sinn Féin Councillor Christy Burke, and future Labour Party TD Joe Costello on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in defence of a street trader, he, Burke and four others are arrested and charged with obstruction and threatening behaviour. He spends two weeks in Mountjoy Prison after refusing to sign a bond to keep the peace.

Gregory remains a TD from 1982 and, although he never holds a government position, remains one of the country’s most recognised Dáil deputies. He always refuses to wear a tie in the Dáil chamber stating that many of his constituents could not afford them.

Gregory dies on January 2, 2009, following a long battle with cancer. Following his death, tributes pour in from politicians from every party, recognising his contribution to Dublin’s north inner city. During his funeral, politicians from the Labour Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are told that although they speak highly of Gregory following his death, during his time in the Dáil he had been excluded by many of them and that they were not to use his funeral as a “photo opportunity.” He is buried on January 7, with the Socialist Party‘s Joe Higgins delivering the graveside oration.

Colleagues of Tony Gregory support his election agent, Dublin City Councillor Maureen O’Sullivan, at the 2009 Dublin Central by-election in June. She wins the subsequent by-election.