Dara Calleary

Calleary was born in Ballina, County Mayo, in 1973. He was educated at St Oliver Plunkett National School and St Muredach's College. He later studied at Trinity College Dublin. He previously worked with Chambers Ireland, the largest business organisation in Ireland, and also worked in an Irish bank.

Calleary is the son of Seán Calleary who was a TD for Mayo East from 1973 to 1992, and the grandson of Phelim Calleary who was a TD for Mayo North from 1952 to 1969.

Calleary has been a member of the Fianna Fáil National Executive since 1997 and has served on party policy committees on Transport, Enterprise and Employment, Agriculture and Youth Affairs.

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2007 general election.[2] In February 2008, Calleary was appointed Chairman of Ógra Fianna Fáil, by then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, at the National Youth Conference in Tullamore, County Offaly. In 2007, Calleary chaired the first ever Ógra Fianna Fáil branch meeting in Northern Ireland, at Queen's University Belfast.

On 22 April 2009, he was appointed Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, with special responsibility for Labour Affairs. On 23 March 2010, following a cabinet reshuffle, responsibility for Public Service Transformation was added to Calleary's role.[3]

In the Fianna Fáil Front Bench he has served as Opposition Spokesperson for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation from 2011 to 2016 and Opposition Spokesperson for Public Expenditure and Reform from 2016 to 2018.

He was appointed Deputy leader of Fianna Fáil in March 2018, by party leader Micheál Martin.[4]

Following the 2020 general election, Calleary served as Fianna Fáil's chief negotiator as the party worked on a deal with Fine Gael and the Green Party to enter into government as a coalition.[5]

On 27 June 2020, the newly formed Government was announced, and the lack of any representative from the west of Ireland was heavily criticised by some.[6][7][8] Although Calleary was deputy leader of Fianna Fáil and chief negotiator for Fianna Fáil, he was not appointed to cabinet by Taoiseach Micheál Martin. He was appointed as a Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach with responsibility as Chief Whip. An article by the Mayo-based Western People declared it "a cabinet fit for Cromwell".[9] While Calleary accepted the role, he publicly acknowledged that he was "angry and disappointed" not to have been offered a departmental portfolio and said that he still saw himself eventually leading a department.[10]

On 15 July 2020, following the sacking of Barry Cowen from the position, he was appointed as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine by Micheál Martin.[11]

On 20 August 2020, Calleary became the centre of the Oireachtas Golf Society scandal when news broke that Calleary and 81 others attended an Oireachtas Golf Society dinner the previous day, in breach of Government COVID-19 guidelines.[12] He resigned as Agriculture Minister the following morning.[13][14][15] Calleary stated to Mid West Radio that "I made a big mistake. I shouldn’t have gone to the function. I didn’t want to let people down and I take responsibility for that mistake".[16] Michael Clifford and Paul Hosford (who broke the story on the Oireachtas Golf Society Scandal alongside Aoife Moore) of the Irish Examiner suggested that the scandal had "left [Calleary's] political career in tatters" and had deeply rocked the Martin Cabinet.[17][18] Three days later on 24 August 2020, he also resigned as Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil.[19]

• Families in the Oireachtas

• Media related to Dara Calleary at Wikimedia Commons
• Dara Calleary's page on the Fianna Fáil website