Martin O'Donoghue

At the 1977 general election O'Donoghue was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Dún Laoghaire constituency.[2] He was chief author of the election manifesto which saw Fianna Fáil achieve an unprecedented twenty-seat majority. O'Donoghue was appointed Minister for Economic Planning and Development on his first day in office as a TD.[3] In 1979, Charles Haughey became Taoiseach and O'Donoghue's ministerial position was abolished. In 1982, O'Donoghue was returned to Cabinet as Minister for Education. He resigned from the government in October 1982, when he refused to support Haughey in a leadership challenge, and in November 1982 lost his Dáil seat at the general election.

O'Donoghue entered Seanad Éireann after losing his Dáil seat. He remained in the Seanad until 1987. Later he left Fianna Fáil, becoming a supporter of the Progressive Democrats.[3]

O'Donoghue returned to academia until his retirement in 1995. In 1998, he became a director of the Central Bank of Ireland, serving with this and its successor body until the end of April 2008. He was also a member of the Scholarship Board of the O'Reilly Foundation.

He died on 20 July 2018.[3][4]