Joe Higgins
| Joe Higgins | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Teachta Dála | |
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In office February 2011 – February 2016 |
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In office June 1997 – May 2007 |
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| Constituency | Dublin West |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
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In office 7 June 2009 – 9 March 2011 |
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| Constituency | Dublin |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
20 May 1949 Lispole, County Kerry, Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Political party | Socialist Party (1996–present) |
| Other political affiliations |
Labour Party (1970−89) United Left Alliance (2010–13) |
| Relations | Liam Higgins (brother) |
| Alma mater | University College Dublin |
| Website | joehiggins |
Joe Higgins (born 20 May 1949) is an Irish Trotskyist politician who belongs to the Socialist Party. In the 2011 general election he was elected to Dáil Éireann as Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency, having previously served in that capacity from 1997 to 2007. He was also a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency from 2009 to 2011, the first Socialist Party MEP.
One of nine children of a small farming family, he was born in 1949 in Lispole, part of the Dingle Gaeltacht in County Kerry. He went to school in the Dingle Christian Brothers School, and after finishing he enrolled in the priesthood. As part of his training he was sent to a Catholic seminary school in Minnesota, United States in the 1960s.
It was against the backdrop of anti-Vietnam War protests and the civil rights movement that Higgins was politicised. He is a brother of Liam Higgins, who played football with the Kerry GAA senior team in the 1960s and 1970s.
Higgins is bilingual in English and Irish.
Higgins returned to Ireland and attended University College Dublin, studying English and French. For several years he was a teacher in several Dublin inner city schools. While at university he joined the Labour Party and became active in the Militant Tendency, an entryist Trotskyist group that operated within the Labour Party. Throughout his time in the Labour Party he was a strong opponent of coalition politics along with TDs Emmet Stagg and Michael D. Higgins. He was elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party by the membership in the 1980s. In 1989 Higgins was expelled alongside 13 other members of Militant Tendency. The group eventually left the party and formed Militant Labour which became the Socialist Party in 1996.
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