Life after politics – what our former TDs did next
They’re not all hiding in cupboards waiting to jump out and promote Sunday newspaper columns, you know.
While former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s infamous 2010 decision to be filmed hiding in a kitchen cupboard an adert is one of the images that spring to mind when thoughts turn to what former TDs do after leaving the Dáil stage, the reality is more diverse.
From working with oil oligarchs to opening a farmers’ market, taking up lucrative, if highly controversial, consultancy work to becoming one of the media commentator’s they once reviled, the options are endless for those at the top of their field.
However, for the majority of TDs further down the pecking order, a sudden expulsion from the Dáil can lead to a far less clearcut path to a new life outside of politics.
In the 72 hours after Friday February 26 this year, as the ballot boxes of election 2016 were prised open and sifted over, the lives of 47 politicians and their families changed as they were unceremoniously dumped out of their seats by an electorate which had lost faith in their ability to get the job done.
For some like Labour’s Derek Nolan and Eric Byrne, who separately said they were “looking for a new job” that Monday and were happy to not be part of the new Dáil as it would become a circus, a shrug of the shoulders approach belied the hurt bubbling just beneath the surface.
However, for others like Labour’s Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who struggled to hold back the tears as the reality of what was happening became apparent in the RDS, and Fine Gael’s Cork East candidate Tom Barry, who appeared shell-shocked in an RTÉ interview the following Tuesday, the often ignored human impact was clear.
Although eight former TDs including those from Labour, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin have since controversially scrambled to safety on board the good ship Seanad, those left bobbing in the sea after being thrown overboard have been forced to grab onto any driftwood floating by and as they attempt to start again.
And while the public’s impression is understandably one of politicians simply walking into a new high-paying job or, indeed, a Sunday newspaper column cupboard without batting an eyelid, for the majority of TDs the truth is far more complicated.
From a post master to a teacher, a would-be screen- play writer to a former army lieutenant who is considering packing it all in, the now ex-TDs who have spoken to the Irish Examiner all have said while they do not expect public sympathy given the financial rewards politics provides, the months since the vote have been traumatic and forced them to re-think priorities.
THE POSTMASTER: Noel Harrington
Fine Gael
Cork South West
45
1999-2016 (Cork County Council 1999-2011; Dáil 2011-2016)
Local post master
“After the election result I was a bit low and felt humiliated, but to some extent I was fortunate. I had something to go back to. But it is a bit of trying to pick up the pieces.”
After 17 years in the political world, from the county council between 1999 and 2011 and a failed 2007 Seanad campaign to his eventual arrival in the Dáil in 2011, former Cork South West TD Noel Harrington is back where it all started.
Eight months ago, the Castletownbere-based father of three was ensconced in an office in the Dáil, planning his potential re-election by sifting through letters from the public asking for his help.
But after a damaging ballot for Fine Gael which saw front- and backbench TDs fall like skittles, he is now sending the letters out rather than receiving them as part of his new job in the local post office.
“When it happens, you do feel you’ve left your party down, your family, your two [Oireachtas office] staff members, so you’re getting your head around all that,” he says.
“It’s like vacating any job, it’s traumatic for everybody.
“People have been extraordinarily sympathetic, but this is very public because it’s not just you it’s your family.”
After losing his seat, Noel took a few weeks to decide what to do before returning to the postmaster role he left for public office in 1999.
A small country office as far from Leinster House — both physically and psychologically — as you can get in Ireland, the former TD admits it took time to adjust, but stresses he is lucky to have had a job waiting for him, something the vast majority of people in the country do not have when they lose their job.
“It’s just something. You’re options are limited. I was on a self-employed contract with the post office in 1992 and came back to it.
Most people don’t have that option,” he says.
“I don’t want to overplay it because people lose their jobs every day of the week, but it is a bit more public.
“There’s also the fact that you have two staff members in a Dáil office. They’re the unsung heroes for any TD, and unfortunately they’re still looking for work.
“Politics is a difficult game, your job is with you 24 hours a day and you’re always aware you might be approached on a night out.
“There’s been good things in what happened in that you get to spend time with your family, you get to have an ordinary life again, whatever that means.
“But I do miss the cut and thrust, the camaraderie with your colleagues. The phone stops ringing. It takes a while to get used to that.”
THE POTENTIAL SCREENWRITER: Joanna Tuffy
Labour
Dublin Mid West
51
1999-2016 (South Dublin County Council 1999-2003; Seanad 2003-2007; Dáil 2007-2016)
N/A
At the Dublin Mid West election count centre on Saturday February 27, former Labour TD Joanna Tuffy was keeping a stiff upper lip as she slowly realised her race was run.
Leaning against the railings next to her 11-year-old daughter Pippa, she joked when asked by the Irish Examiner what she would do now by saying: “I might write a screenplay.”
While the pipe dream of a Hollywood life has not quite yet materialised, six months on it turns out the qualified lawyer’s throwaway comment may not have been a joke.
“I haven’t got around to doing that yet, but it is something I’d like to do. I’m still interested in that area, even in non-fiction,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I loved politics and still have a lot of ambition to get back into that. But politics can also tend to be quite one-dimensional and it can make you feel guilty in going after the things you’re personally interested in, like films and history.”
Joanna says that, while she is no longer a politician, in the months since the election she has advised people who sought her help before the vote and spent some time cleaning up files she had in her now former Oireachtas office.
The leftover work, and the parachute payment former TDs receive in the immediate aftermath of losing a seat, mean the Labour member has still to fully decide what she will do, now that politics has left her behind — an issue she admits will need to be resolved soon.
“In the immediate aftermath of it all I was extremely busy, I almost didn’t have time to think.
“I’d been at the Oireachtas for more than 10 years, so when I was moving out, myself and my parliamentary assistant took a photograph of the office, because it was kind of sad, you realise you might never be back there again, and the following weeks you can’t believe it, so it takes up some time.
“I’m still not sure what I’ll do now. I spent time previously working as a part-time solicitor, starting out on a low salary, but I’m not sure if I will go back to that. I’m prepared to start off again but at the same time that takes time and I have a mortgage to pay.
“What happens in my case is that from September my Oireachtas redundancy payment, for want of a better term, started to diminish. And I’m the breadwinner in our house. So I have to think about things.”
Joanna says when she “took a step back from it [politics]” she realised the “pressure of being a politician was gone” and that she has enjoyed “getting my life back” and spending more time with her family.
However, while Oireachtas support is available for former TDs in the first few weeks, she admits she would prefer to be given more advice on how to cope with moving on from politics — and potentially returning to the Dáil.
“They give you some help at the start and you get you’re life back, that’s true. But I’m conflicted. I still want to be a TD.”
THE TEACHER: Ciaran Lynch
Labour
Cork South Central
52
2004-2016 (Cork City Council 2004-2007; Dáil 2007-2016)
Adult education teacher
Given the fact that former bank inquiry chair Ciaran Lynch joked more than once last year that the inquiry meant his time was spent at the top of a room full of unruly students trying to keep order while helping people learn a lesson, it is hardly surprising the Corkman has returned to his teaching days.
After losing his position in a tight four-seat constituency which also included high-profile politicians Micheál Martin, Simon Coveney and Michael McGrath, the former Labour TD initially admits to “not being in the best space”.
However, after a short time to lick his wounds, he decided to return to his former job as a teacher at Cork’s adult education training board in April becoming one of the few TDs to return to a teaching job kept open for them on entering politics.
“My focus [in the adult education centre] has been on programmes for the community, family resource centre supports and for other nationalities living here because they are now very much part of the mainstream community.
“I’d taken a career break from 2004 when I joined the city council, and I’ve always had an interest in community development so that’s what brought me back,” he says.
Like others, he admits to still having thoughts of returning to the Dáil. “If it [another election] happened tomorrow I would hope I’d be chosen, because for one thing I still have the posters,” he says.
However, Mr Lynch is more relaxed than most about losing his place at Leinster House.
The opportunity to take a breather and the difficulties of the new Dáil, he says, are clear reasons why.
“When I lost my seat it was difficult, but nobody died. So it just requires a bit of adaptation. For one thing it’s a return to a quality of life I haven’t had in 17 or 18 years.
“Any change of life is difficult, whether it’s moving house or job or whatever.
“But last year I was working on New Year’s Eve and extremely busy with the bank inquiry 24/7 whereas now I have some detachment from it.
“If I had been re-elected I would also have been a member of what I believe is the worst and most ineffective Dáil in the history of the State.
“There is no legislation being passed, it’s all just noise and a slow bicycle race between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
“Instead of that, I can now go down to West Cork. I was down there, in Glengarriff, recently and found a rod in the boot of my car, so I took it out and went fishing.
“It was the first time I did that in five or six years.”
THE RETIRED SOLDIER: Billy Timmins
N/A (Formerly with Renua Ireland and Fine Gael)
Wicklow
56
1997-2016 (Wicklow County Council 1999-2004 [dual mandate]; Dáil 1997-2016)
N/A
“In a nutshell, the first couple of months after the election were very unsettling because no government was formed and I was still focused on putting my shoulder to the wheel with Renua.
“But I’ve left that now, and I’ve given myself a self-imposed deadline to make a decision on whether to stay in politics at all.”
Barring a two year gap between 1987 and 1989, there has been a Timmins in Leinster House since 1968.
However, despite the near half a century of family service, in February the dynasty was one of many to come crashing down to earth as Billy Timmins failed to be re-elected — bringing an end to a lengthy period he and his father Godfrey had shared for 48 years.
Having entered national politics relatively late at the age of 37 when he left the army and took over his retired father’s seat, the former Renua Ireland deputy leader is now unsure of where life will take him.
He can’t go back to the Defence Forces. He has stepped away from the newest party on the Irish political block after a disastrous overall campaign. And, while there may still be an Independent space for him in the Dáil, Billy is unsure whether he wants the hassle of another stab at it.
Retirement appears to be beckoning in the near distance.
“I can’t go back to the Defence Forces, even though it’s a fantastic life from Lebanon to Cyprus, because you can’t get a leave of absence when you go. So I’m going through a change of life right now.
“There’s been a lot of other things that I’ve had to put on the back burner over the years, because politics is so 24/7, so now I have time to just do other things.
“When I joined Renua I was full of hope and aspirations for it. Unfortunately that didn’t work out for a number of reasons. I’ve left them now and I’m not sure what’s next.
“That deadline I’ve given myself might come and go, it might be like a commission of investigation in terms of meeting deadlines, but politics is changing.
“I’ve always operated on the basis that if you have two sweeping brushes you give one to your neighbour. But in politics now, you’re more likely to break one and keep the other for yourself.
“What I miss in politics is trying to make a contribution. If I was back again, maybe I’d just speak my mind.”
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