New Irish Cabinet Unveiled | The Irish Film & Television Network

Born in Claremorris, County Mayo in 1949, Pat Rabbitte has represented Dublin South-West in the Dáil since 1989 and has served in several other positions since, including that of Minister of State for Commerce, Science and Technology from 1994-1997 and was leader of the Labour Party between 2002 and 2007.

Pat Rabbitte featured strongly in the media in November 2010 following his heavy criticism of then Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs (and Ireland’s penultimate Minister for Communications), Pat Carey on ‘Prime Time’. A Youtube clip of the incident has been viewed over 160,000 times.

One of Pat Carey’s last acts as Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, was the addition of several new RTÉ channels in the line-up of channels to be included in the new national ‘free to air’ Saorview DTT platform. The upcoming analogue switch-over will be on of Minister Rabbitte’s priorities in the coming months.

Jimmy Deenihan T.D. was appointed as Minister of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht by Enda Kenny. Born in Listowel, Co. Kerry, the former Kerry football star was appointed a Dáil deputy in 1987 and was later appointed Advisor to the Leader on Northern Ireland Policy and Party Spokesperson on Sport in February 2001.

Deputy Dennihan was Fine Gael's Junior Spokesperson on Environmental Information and Protection from June 2000 to February 2001 and was then re-elected to the Dáil in 2007 where he was appointed spokesperson for Defence. July 2010 saw him re-appointed as spokesperson on Tourism, Culture and Sport having served in this portfolio from June 2002 to May 2007.

Free Industry Newsletter

Subscribe to IFTN's industry newsletter - it's free and e-mailed directly to your inbox every week.
Click here to sign up.