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 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 led him to study architecture at University College Dublin (UCD), in 1964 and later at the School of Ekistics in Athens.[citation needed]
In 1965, Quinn joined the Labour Party working for 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.[2]
He travelled in Europe and became a europhile, which was to be a defining characteristic of his political career.[according to whom?] He qualified as an architect in 1969 and married for the first time that year before embarking on studies in Athens. He and his first wife had a son and a daughter. He married again in 1990 and has a son with his second wife, Liz Allman, an architect, whose family came from Milltown, County Kerry. He became employed as an architect with Dublin Corporation in 1971.
Early political career
In 1972, Quinn decided he would stand for the Labour Party in the next general election and hoped he would be the running mate of the sitting Labour deputy for Dublin South-East, Noël Browne. The party organisation was largely moribund since Browne's election in 1969 as Browne had been ill and little work had been done locally.[citation needed] When the election was called in February 1973, Quinn found he was the only Labour Party candidate as Browne refused to stand in principled opposition to the Labour Party's decision to enter into a pre-election pact with Fine Gael to form a National Coalition.[3] 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.[4]
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 202mg of alcohol for 100 ml of urine. He was banned from driving for a year and fined £250.[6]
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.[7] 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 the reduction of the then high level of unemployment. 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. This proved to be particularly successful.
Quinn was seen as a moderniser in economic terms but, despite attempts, 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.
The following year he became Minister for Finance in the Rainbow coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left. Quinn took a relatively conservative line as finance minister, conscious of his position as the first Labour Party Minister for Finance in Ireland.[2] He quickly proved his competence, dispelling opposition jibes and stock market fears about a social democratic minister holding the sensitive finance portfolio. The Irish economy continued to perform, while inflation and the government finances were kept under firm control. Unemployment gradually fell and public debt levels improved.
During Quinn's tenure as Minister for Finance, the overall tax burden in Ireland (the ratio of tax revenue, including pay-related social insurance levies, to gross national product) fell from 38.7% to 34.8%, of by 1.3 percentage points each year. He achieved this by limiting current government spending to grow by 6.8% in nominal terms or 4.8% in real terms, against a backdrop of improving economic fortunes, due to increasing investment in technology-intensive sectors of the Irish economy.
Under Quinn, the General Government Balance went from a deficit of 2.1% in 1995 to a surplus of 1.1% in 1997. The General Government Debt went from 81% of GNP in 1995 to 63.6% in 1997. The year before Quinn became an economic Minister in 1993, Irish economic growth was 2.5% (1992). In 1997, it was 10.3%. The unemployment rate fell from 15.7% in 1993 to 10.3% in 1997.
Quinn served as the President of the Ecofin Council of the European Union in 1996, and worked to accelerate the launch of the European Single Currency, while securing Ireland's qualification for the eurozone. Quinn, and his party leader and Tánaiste, Foreign Minister Dick Spring enjoyed a somewhat uneasy relationship during the Rainbow Coalition, as recounted in Quinn's 2005 memoir. At the 1997 general election the Labour Party returned to opposition, winning only 17 of its outgoing 33 seats. Many other ministers of the Labour Party were under significant pressure from the media (particularly the Irish Independent) concerning allegations of cronyism ("jobs for the boys") and abusing the privileges of office. In comparison, the opposition under Bertie Ahern placed heavy reliance on cutting tax rates as opposed to widening tax bands favoured by Quinn. Ahern also claimed credit for the country's improving economy was due to his earlier term in government.
Quinn succeeded Dick Spring as Leader of the Labour Party in 1998
In October 1997, Dick Spring resigned as leader of the Labour Party following an unsuccessful campaign by the Labour Party candidate, Adi Roche, in the 1997 Irish presidential election. Quinn defeated Brendan Howlin to become the new leader. In 1999, the Labour Party and Democratic Left merged. Proinsias De Rossa of the latter party became the largely symbolic party president, while Quinn remained as leader of the party. He used his years of leadership to develop a strong policy platform, publishing a Spatial Strategy for future development of the country, promoting universal access to health insurance, advocating reform of the Garda Síochána, and arguing for closer European integration. Fianna Fáil countered by exploiting Quinn's middle-class background, labelling him "Mr Angry fromSandymount," the middle-class district of Dublin where Quinn is a longtime resident, and was part of the constituency he represented.
At the 2002 general election, which saw the incumbent Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats government re-elected, the Labour Party returned with no net gain since the previous election, after accounting for the merger with Democratic Left. Quinn fought that election on an independent platform although he indicated a preference to enter government with Fine Gael, which he had served with in the Rainbow coalition era. Quinn's strategy was predicated on the Labour Party holding the balance of power and keeping a distance from the two bigger parties. This underestimated the attraction for the electorate of the outgoing Ahern Government which had enjoyed extraordinary economic growth and prosperity.[according to whom?]
Realising that the choice was between a majority Fianna Fáil government on the one hand, or a government of Fianna Fáil in coalition with the Progressive Democrats, Michael McDowell, a constituency rival of Quinn's, seized the moment and put themselves forward as the guarantor of the public interest in a new Fianna Fáil government. Under the leadership of Michael Noonan, Fine Gael lost 23 seats, being reduced to 31 seats, their worst performance in decades.
Quinn was disappointed that, even though Labour had not lost seats in net numbers and Fine Gael had lost 23 seats, he had failed to increase the number of seats his party held, in an election that resulted in gains for small parties on the left end of the political spectrum, such as Sinn Féin and the Green Party. Quinn himself was re-elected on the last count by 600 votes. Accepting that he would now be in opposition for another term, Quinn announced that he would not seek re-election for another six-year term as leader of the Labour Party, at the end of August 2002.
In October 2002, Quinn's term as party leader expired and he retired as Labour leader, being replaced in a leadership election by Pat Rabbitte. When Rabbitte resigned as party leader in 2007, Quinn supported the successful candidacy of Eamon Gilmore. His public support of Gilmore, where he also brought the endorsement of all the Dublin City Councillors in his area, was seen as instrumental in discouraging other candidates from entering the race. Quinn caused anger and controversy when he refused to give up his minister's pension worth €41,656 while sitting as a TD in 2009. He eventually backed down after pressure was put on him to give up the pension.
At the 2007 general election, Quinn increased his share of the poll by some 4% and was returned to the 30th Dáil. He was nominated for the post of Ceann Comhairle but was defeated by John O'Donoghue. Quinn became Labour Party spokesperson on Education and Science as a member of Eamon Gilmore's front bench in September 2007. Quinn contributed to the successful second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in September 2009 and continued to be an office holder with the Party of European Socialists.
In September 2010, Quinn was appointed the Labour Party's national director of elections for the 2011 general election by Gilmore. He had been selected along with Kevin Humphreys to be a candidate for Labour in that election. Both Quinn and Humphreys were elected to the 31st Dáil on 27 February 2011; strategic vote management saw the Labour Party in Dublin South-East secure two seats with only a quarter of the first preference vote.
Minister for Education: 2011–2014
On 9 March 2011, Quinn was appointed as Minister for Education and Skills in the Fine Gael–Labour coalition government.[8] 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.[9] 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) 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.”[10]
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.[11] He described his plan as "the most radical shake-up of the junior cycle programme since the ending of the Inter Cert in 1991",[12] and claimed the scrapping of the Junior Certificate exams would help the “bottom half” of students.[13] 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 "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".[14]
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.[citation needed]
In February 2013, Quinn published legislation to replace the largely discredited state training and employment agency, FÁS, with a new statutory body named SOLAS.[citation needed]
On 2 July 2014, Ruairi Quinn announced his decision to resign as Minister for Education and Skills, which became effective in 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.[15][16]
Ruairi Quinn (2005). Straight Left: A Journey in Politics. Dublin: Hodder Headline Ireland. ISBN0-340-83296-7.
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References
↑ "Ruairi Quinn". Oireachtas Members Database. Archived from the original on 19 April 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
↑ Horgan, John (October 2009). "Browne, Noel Christopher". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 11 February 2024. The inevitable upshot of this was that when Labour went into the 1973 election on the basis of a pre-election pact with Fine Gael, Noel Browne refused to sign the party pledge and was accordingly deselected as a party candidate for Dublin South-East.
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