Alan Kelly

His parents' house burned down in 1974, the year before he was born.

Kelly was raised on a small dairy farm.

Alan Thomas Kelly (born 13 July 1975) is an Irish politician and author who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Tipperary constituency since the 2016 general election and a TD for the Tipperary North constituency from 2011 to 2016.

His father left farming following the introduction of milk quotas by the European Council in the 1980s and found employment working on the roads for the local county council.

In Kelly's final year of secondary school, he canvassed for the Labour Party during the 1992 general election.

He remained active in left-wing politics in university, establishing the Jim Kemmy Branch of the Labour Party in UCC.

He then became involved in a number of by-elections, local election campaigns in Cork and in the wider Munster area.

He has stated that he was "politically socialised in Cork".

Educated at Nenagh CBS, he subsequently attended University College Cork (UCC), where he completed a BA in English and History in 1995.

Two years later he completed a M.Phil in Political History.

Kelly continued his education at Boston College, where he achieved a Certificate in Leadership in 1999.

Kelly became Chair of Labour Youth in 2000, having previously served as co-chair.

In 2001 he was a member of the General Council.

In 2001 and 2002 he was director of the Tom Johnson Summer School and was also a member of the General Election Planning Committee in the period 2001–2002.

He returned to Ireland shortly after this and completed a MBS in eCommerce in 2002.

Kelly subsequently worked as an eBusiness Manager with Bord Fáilte and Fáilte Ireland.

In 2007, Kelly was elected to Seanad Éireann on the Agricultural Panel.

Later in 2007, Eamon Gilmore, the newly elected leader of the Labour Party, appointed Kelly as Spokesperson on Tourism and was Seanad Spokesperson on Finance and Local Government.

He was a Member of the European Parliament for the South constituency from 2009 to 2011 and a Senator for the Agricultural Panel from 2007 to 2009.

Kelly is from Portroe just outside Nenagh, County Tipperary.

He is the son of Tom and Nan Kelly.

At the 2009 European Parliament election, Kelly was for the South constituency, taking the last seat in a tight battle between him, Sinn Féin's Toireasa Ferris and the Independent Kathy Sinnott.

Kelly was a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

He also served on the Delegation for Relations with the United States.

Following the 2011 election, Kelly served as a minister in the Government of the 31st Dail, as part of the Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition.

Though he had promised he would see out his five-year term in the European Parliament, Kelly contested the 2011 general election.

He ran in the Tipperary North constituency and was successful, receiving 9,559 first preference votes (19.8%) and securing the third and final seat at the expense of Fianna Fáil's sitting TD, Máire Hoctor.

Phil Prendergast replaced him as MEP for the South constituency.

After the formation of a Fine Gael–Labour coalition government, Kelly was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport with responsibility for Public and Commuter Transport.

Kelly began receiving death threats during this period.

He served as Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and Deputy leader of the Labour Party from 2014 to 2016 and a Minister of State from 2011 to 2014.

He was elected as deputy leader of the Labour Party on 4 July 2014.

On 11 July 2014, he was appointed Minister of the Environment, Community and Local Government, succeeding Phil Hogan, who had been nominated as EU Commissioner.

When Kelly was given his ministerial role, he initially believed that property tax would be the big issue, but within a week realised that it would be the implementation of water charges and the Irish Water as required by the EU Water Framework Directive.

Kelly claimed that his predecessor, Phil Hogan, had "designed the ditches" and that he now had to "drive the tractor through".

Kelly also complained of the position that he had been left with upon becoming accustomed to the role.

The cabinet had previously been told by the ERSI that the cost-benefit analysis on water metering was "robust" and based on "realistic and achievable assumptions regarding the benefits".

Writing on Kelly in How Ireland Voted 2016: The Election Nobody Won, the authors claimed that Phil Hogan left "the controversy surrounding water charges remained for his successor, Labour's Alan Kelly, to deal with".

However, by the time Kelly inherited the ministry, "it had fallen apart," according to Michael Brennan in his 2019 book In Deep Water: How People, Politics and Protests sank Irish Water.

He previously served as the leader of the Labour Party from 2020 to 2022.