Michael Noonan ready to contest general election after surgery

Daniel McConnell

Finance Minister Michael Noonan spent Christmas in hospital following surgery to remove “fluid in the chest area.”

It is believed that Mr Noonan, who was treated for a rare cancer condition in 2014, underwent the operation last week.

The 72-year-old minister is said to be recovering well in a Dublin hospital.

Mr Noonan has played a pivotal role in this Government and has been one of the main reasons the Fine Gael-Labour coalition has been able to run the full five year term.

Mr Noonan's latest illness will not have a bearing on the timing of the general election which was due to be called late next month with polling day in late February.

Mr Noonan today issued a personal statement on the matter.

“Two weeks before Christmas I attended my doctor and was diagnosed with an infection involving fluid in the chest area. I subsequently underwent some medical procedures and I am now well on the mend,” he said.

Mr Noonan said he also intends being at the first Cabinet meeting of 2016, which is due to take place on Tuesday January 5.

“I will be attending cabinet on January 5 and I look forward to contesting the upcoming general election,” Mr Noonan said.

The veteran Limerick TD, who has five grown children, is set to be a key player in the Fine Gael's General Election campaign.

He has been in politics since 1974 when he was first elected to Limerick County Council.

A TD since May 1981, he famously was the Justice Minister who revealed the bugging of two jouralists' phones by the previous Fianna Fail Government in 1983.

He later controversially served in government as Health Minister, where his hard-line handling of the Hep C crisis drew much criticism.

He led Fine Gael from February 2001 until May 2002 when he resigned after a humiliating election for the party which lost 23 Dáil seats.

Mr Noonan was cast into the political wilderness after Enda Kenny became leader as the two had a difficult relationship.

Mr Kenny left him out of his front bench team and Mr Noonan appeared to heading for the exit. But gradually relations thawed and Kenny had him appointed to chair the Public Accounts Committee in 2004.

Mr Noonan also took a step back from front-line politics in order to tend to his wife, Florence, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease.

In 2010, after she had been moved to full-time care, Mr Noonan spoke emotionally on RTE television about his wife's progressive dementia.

Mr Noonan was to enjoy a late Renaissance after the botched heave against Mr Kenny in 2010, amid disappointing polls for Fine Gael. Having not pinned his colours to either side, Mr Noonan was appointed to the key finance portfolio by Kenny in his reshuffle.

After its record General Election result in 2011, Mr Noonan became Finance Minister, succeeding Brian Lenihan.

Just a year in office, Mr Noonan was to lose his wife Florence, when she finally lost her battle in 2012 .But he has had a succession of health difficulties in recent years. In late 2007, Mr Noonan had a successful heart bypass operation.

Then last year, he revealed that he was receiving radiotherapy treatment for a rare form of cancer, after he found a lump whilst he was having a shower.