Dick Spring

His father Dan won two All-Ireland Senior Football Championships in 1939 and 1940.

He then won rugby union caps for Munster, and lined out for London Irish in the UK.

Spring senior had been a TD for Kerry North since 1943, mostly representing Labour, but he was briefly a member of National Labour.

Richard Martin Spring (born 29 August 1950) is an Irish businessman and former politician.

Spring was born in Tralee, County Kerry in 1950, the son of Dan and Anna Spring (née Laide).

He was educated at Cistercian College in Roscrea, County Tipperary, and at Trinity College Dublin, and qualified as a barrister at King's Inns.

He played his club football with the Kerins O'Rahilly's club in Tralee and hurling with Crotta O'Neill's; he also played underage hurling with Austin Stacks and won a minor county championship in 1967.

Spring played Gaelic football and hurling for Kerry during the 1970s.

He also was capped for Ireland three times during the 1979 Five Nations Championship, debuting against on 20 January 1979 at Lansdowne Road, and receiving his last international cap on 17 February 1979 against at Lansdowne Road.

Spring's political life began in 1979, when he successfully contested the local elections in Tralee.

He replaced his father Dan Spring TD on Kerry County Council that year.

He was a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kerry North from 1981 to 2002.

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in the general election of 1981 for the constituency of Kerry North, the seat previously held by his father Dan.

The Labour Party formed a coalition Government with Fine Gael and Spring was appointed a junior minister on his first day as a Deputy.

He became leader of the Labour Party in 1982, and held this position until 1997.

He served as Minister for the Environment (1982–83), Minister for Energy (1983–87) and Minister for Foreign Affairs (1993–Nov. 1994, Dec. 1994–97).

He served as Tánaiste during those three governments.

Prior to his political career, Spring was a successful sportsman who played for the Ireland national rugby union team and the Kerry GAA football and hurling teams.

When Michael O'Leary resigned as party leader after the February 1982 general election, Spring allowed his name to go forward in the leadership contest.

He easily defeated Barry Desmond and Michael D. Higgins, but inherited the leadership of a deeply divided party.

Spring was a strong opponent of anti-coalition politics and systematically removed Trotskyist activists from the party.

Most notably he expelled the Militant Tendency (later Socialist Party), including Joe Higgins and Clare Daly.

Following the November 1982 general election Labour again formed a coalition government with Fine Gael.

Spring was appointed Tánaiste and Minister for the Environment.

He was closely involved in the negotiations which led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985.

In 1987, the Labour Party withdrew from the government on budgetary issues, and Fianna Fáil took power in the subsequent election.

Spring himself narrowly escaped losing his seat when he was re-elected by just four votes.

Under Spring, the Labour Party selected Mary Robinson as its candidate in the 1990 presidential election.

Robinson was elected, and this success enhanced the credibility of his leadership of the party.

For Spring, his period in opposition coincided, with the exposure of a number of business scandals and gave him the opportunity to shine as a critic of the Fianna Fáil government, led by the controversial Charles Haughey.

As a result, in the 1992 general election the party increased its number of Dáil seats from 15 to 33, at the time its largest-ever number, an event which is referred to as the "Spring Tide".

After the election, no government could be appointed when the new Dáil met.

After some weeks of stalemate, Spring decided to enter negotiations with Albert Reynolds—who had taken over as Taoiseach from Haughey at the beginning of the year—over the Christmas period on a new programme for government.

The Labour Party then entered a coalition government with Fianna Fáil, and thus returned Reynolds to power.

Spring was appointed Tánaiste for the second time, and also Minister for Foreign Affairs.

This was approved by a special party conference of over 1,000 delegates at Dublin's National Concert Hall in January 1993, though there were some Labour Party TDs who dissented from the leadership position and wanted a coalition with Fine Gael.

Labour took six of the fifteen cabinet ministries and had much of its election manifesto accepted by Fianna Fáil.

New Departments of Equality and Law Reform, and of Arts and Culture, were established.

Ethics legislation was to outlaw conflicts of interest.

He is a descendant of the Anglo-Irish Spring family that settled in County Kerry in the late 16th century.