Richard Boyd Barrett

Richard Boyd Barrett (born 6 February 1967) is an Irish People Before Profit–Solidarity politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency since the 2011 general election.

Boyd Barrett is a former member of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council.

He is also chair of the Irish Anti-War Movement and has been cited on war issues in the Irish media.

Richard Boyd Barrett was adopted as a baby.

He was raised as a Catholic in Glenageary, County Dublin, by his parents, David Boyd Barrett, an accountant, and his wife, Valerie.

He attended St Michael's College in Dublin.

He holds a master's degree in English literature from University College Dublin.

His birth mother is Sinéad Cusack, with whom he was later reunited in public.

Boyd Barrett lost to Ciarán Cuffe of the Green Party, by 9,910 votes to 7,890 votes on the 10th count.

Boyd Barrett stood in the Dún Laoghaire constituency at the 2002 general election for the Socialist Workers Party and at the 2007 general election for the People Before Profit.

This switch of identification was intended to increase his support from non-socialist voters.

Boyd Barrett contested the 2004 Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council election.

He was not elected and received 1,439 votes (7.4% of the poll).

The Cusack-Boyd Barrett connection was revealed to the public in the last week of Boyd Barrett's unsuccessful attempt to be elected to the Dáil, at the 2007 general election; Cusack, a vocal opponent of the Iraq War, canvassed for him.

Political commentators incorrectly claimed that Boyd Barrett had leaked his connection with Cusack for political gains; it was actually a meeting of Sunday Independent journalist Liam Collins and the same newspaper's security correspondent Jim Cusack that led to its publication.

While both were dining out in Dún Laoghaire, the security correspondent mentioned to Collins: "I heard Sinéad Cusack is his mother".

Collins had political reporter Daniel McConnell call Boyd Barrett to ask him.

Boyd Barrett asked that it not be published as it was private family information that had nothing to do with his role as a public representative, though, when it was, his mother was then in a position to campaign for him.

Since their reunion, Boyd Barrett has had a good relationship with Cusack, her husband Jeremy Irons, and his half-brothers, Sam and Max.

In the run-up to the election in 2007 he participated in high-profile campaigns against high-rise development, bin and water charges, privatisation of hospitals and support for the Rossport Five.

At the 2009 election, he was elected to Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, topping the poll in the Dún Laoghaire LEA with 22.8% of the vote.

Following a "nail-biting two days" of recounting votes, was elected on the 10th count without reaching the quota.

As a TD, Boyd Barrett, supported protests against cuts to Dublin Bus services, saying that "Some of the older and disabled people are literally prisoners in their homes now as a result of the cut or discontinuation of the service they previously relied on".

At the 2011 general election, Boyd Barrett was elected as a TD for Dún Laoghaire for People Before Profit.

PBP was part of the United Left Alliance.

In the Dáil, he condemned the 2011 murder of PSNI officer Ronan Kerr as "an utterly brutal action, which leads back down a road which has failed".

He drafted the text of the first Private Members' motion which suggests there is an "overwhelming democratic case" for putting the EU–IMF bank bailout to a referendum of the Irish people.

He also committed to facilitating the nomination of Senator David Norris, for a place on the ballot paper ahead of the 2011 presidential election, and welcomed the release of Teresa Treacy, who was imprisoned for contempt of court over a land development dispute with the ESB and Eirgrid.

Marie O'Halloran in The Irish Times described his "consistently passionate outrage and opposition to the Government's handling of the financial and banking crisis."

Boyd Barrett spoke in Dublin location at the 15 October 2011 global protests, inspired by the Spanish "Indignants" and the Occupy Wall Street movements.

The same month he said Enda Kenny's government was engaging in "spin and disingenuity" to cover up its austerity policies, decrying the closure of hospital emergency departments around the country for "health and safety" reasons.

On 2 November 2011, Boyd Barrett led the United Left Alliance TDs out of the Dáil, in protest against the government's decision not to hold a debate on the payment of more than €700 million to Anglo Irish Bank bondholders.

"You will not even give the parliament the right to vote on the handover of all the money you have taken out of the health service", he objected.

On 15 December 2011, he helped launch a nationwide campaign against a proposed household charge being brought in as part of the 2012 Irish budget.

The Phoenix reported that, after a Technical group meeting with the Troika on 17 January 2012, another member of the Technical Group, Mick Wallace, confronted Boyd Barrett and angrily criticized him for "ignoring their advance strategy of dividing up questions between them and dominating the meeting with a raft of his own queries and assertions. Boyd Barrett was part of an Oireachtas delegation that met the Bundestag's Budgetary and European Affairs committees in Berlin, in late January 2012.

In October 2012, he confirmed that he had claimed €12,000 in 2011 expenses for travelling to the Dáil from his home in Glenageary, in his Dún Laoghaire constituency – a distance of 12 km.

In May 2013, he revealed that theatre director Vincent Dowling was his biological father.

On 10 March 2016, at the first sitting of the 32nd Dáil, he was one of four candidates nominated for the position of Taoiseach, all of whom failed to reach a majority.

Ruth Coppinger nominated Boyd Barrett for the role, quoting James Connolly from a hundred years previously when she said: "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".

Bríd Smith seconded the nomination.