Ruairi Quinn (born 2 April 1946) is an Irish former Labour Party politician who served as Minister for Education and Skills from 2011 to 2014, Leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1989 to 1997, Minister for Finance from 1994 to 1997, Minister for Enterprise and Employment from 1993 to 1994, Minister for the Public Service from 1986 to 1987, Minister for Labour from 1983 to 1986, Minister of State for Urban Affairs and Housing from 1982 to 1983. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-East constituency from 1977 to 1981 and 1982 to 2016. He was a Senator from 1976 to 1977, after being nominated by the Taoiseach and again from 1981 to 1982 for the Industrial and Commercial Panel.

Early life

Quinn was born on 2 April 1946. His family were prominent republicans in County Down in the 1920s, taking an active part in the IRA during the War of Independence and on the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War. The Quinns were prosperous merchants in Newry, County Down, then moved to Dublin in the 1930s, where Quinn's father built a successful business career.

Quinn was educated at St Michael's College and Blackrock College, both situated in Dublin, where he was academically successful and an outstanding athlete and a member of Blackrock College's Senior Cup rugby team. From an early age, he was interested in art and won the all-Ireland Texaco Children's Art competition. This prompted him to study architecture at University College Dublin (UCD), in 1964 and later at the School of Ekistics in Athens.

In 1965, Quinn joined the Labour Party, working on Michael O'Leary's successful campaign in Dublin North-Central. In the following years, Quinn was a leading student radical in UCD demanding reform of the university's structures and the old fashioned architectural course that then prevailed. This earned him the nickname "Ho Chi Quinn", after the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Quinn lost by 39 votes to Fergus O'Brien of Fine Gael in the final count. Following the 1973 election, Quinn began to rebuild the Labour Party in Dublin South-East with his mainly youthful supporters. He won a council seat on Dublin Corporation at the local elections in 1974 in the Pembroke–Rathmines local electoral area and took a leading role in the Labour Party group on the city council.

Quinn was a partner in an architecture firm from 1973 to 1982. In 1976, he was nominated by the Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, to Seanad Éireann when Brendan Halligan won a by-election in Dublin South-West and his Seanad seat became vacant.

On 10 March 1991, Quinn was observed by Gardaí driving erratically in the Clontarf area. At Clontarf Garda Station, Quinn provided a urine sample, which showed him to have an 202 mg of alcohol for 100ml of urine. He was banned from driving for a year and fined £250.

Early ministerial career

In 1982, he became Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. Between 1983 and 1987, he served as Minister for Labour. From 1986 to 1987, he was appointed Minister for the Public Service, held in addition to the Labour portfolio. He resigned as a minister when Labour left the government in January 1987. In 1989, he became deputy leader of the Labour Party. He was director of elections for Mary Robinson's successful presidential election campaign in 1990.

Minister for Enterprise and Employment

In the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition government of 1993–1994, Quinn became Minister for Enterprise and Employment.

In July 1993, Quinn adopted a successful employment policy called the Back to Work Allowance, which targeted the long-term unemployed. This allowed unemployed people to retain their unemployment benefits on a sliding scale for a number of years, while setting up a business or taking up a job. He also presided over the merger of the former Department of Industry and Commerce with the former Department of Labour, with a new focus on enterprise development and reduction of high unemployment levels. Quinn implemented reform of industrial strategy and reorganised the industrial development agencies. He also introduced the Community Employment Programme to provide activity and involvement for unemployed workers in 1994, which proved to be particularly successful.

Quinn was seen as a moderniser in economic terms, but who tried and failed to close the Irish Steel company in Haulbowline, County Cork. Nevertheless, it was in August 1994, while Quinn and Fianna Fáil's Bertie Ahern were economic ministers, that the Irish economy was first described as the "Celtic Tiger".

Quinn, along with many of his Labour cabinet colleagues, strove unsuccessfully to keep the Fianna Fáil–Labour government together during the Father Brendan Smyth crisis in November 1994. He records in his autobiography that he still cannot understand why that Government fell.

Minister for Finance

The following year, Quinn became Minister for Finance in the Rainbow coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left. He took a relatively conservative line as finance minister, conscious of his position as the first Labour Party Minister for Finance in Ireland. In May 2011, he confirmed a U-turn on a pre-election pledge that he would reverse a proposed increase in third-level student registration fees, instead providing for a €500 increase in the fee payable by students. In July 2011, Quinn had again refused to rule out the return of college fees as he acknowledged the funding crisis in the higher education sector. The Minister told a meeting of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) that the funding crisis in higher education will “not go away” for many years to come. Asked if new charges were planned, he said: “I honestly can't say. We are looking for efficiencies in the system at third level. ... I have said to Brendan Howlin that I will deliver.”

In October 2012, Quinn announced the phasing out of the current Junior Certificate programme over the next eight years, to be replaced by a school-based model of continuous assessment. He described his plan as "the most radical shake-up of the junior cycle programme since the ending of the Inter Cert in 1991", and claimed the scrapping of the Junior Certificate exams would help the "bottom half" of students. This reform was never implemented.

On 12 October 2012, Quinn, speaking to an audience at an anniversary celebration for St Kilian's German School, said the "demons of nationalism" and "chauvinism" embedded in our cultures would only stay under control if there was a deeper European culture. He went on to say they "will only stay in the place where they belong if we have more Europe, if we have a deeper Europe, if we have a wider Europe".

On 29 January 2013, Quinn launched Ireland's first national plan to tackle bullying in schools, including cyberbullying. The Action Plan on Bullying set out 12 clear actions on how to prevent and tackle bullying.

Quinn was responsible for the Further Education and Training Act 2013, which replaced the largely discredited state training and employment agency, FÁS, with a new statutory body named SOLAS.

On 2 July 2014, Ruairi Quinn announced his decision to resign as Minister for Education and Skills, which became effective following the cabinet reshuffle on 11 July. He also said that he would not be seeking re-election to the Dáil after the 2016 Irish general election.

Post-political activities

Since 2016, Quinn has sat on various boards, including as chairperson of the Irish Architectural Archive (2020–2023), and as a director of the Institute of International and European Affairs.

See also

  • Families in the Oireachtas

Bibliography

References

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  • Ruairi Quinn's page on the Labour Party website