Barry Andrews

Andrews's father, David Andrews served as a TD from 1965 to 2002 and is a former Foreign Minister, while his uncle, Niall Andrews, was a former Fianna Fáil TD and MEP and his cousin, Chris Andrews (son of Niall Andrews), has been a Sinn Féin TD since 2020 (having previously served as a Fianna Fáil TD from 2007 to 2011).

Barry Andrews (born 16 May 1967) is an Irish politician who serves as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Dublin constituency.

He is a member of Fianna Fáil, part of Renew Europe.

He worked as a secondary school teacher in Dublin from 1991 until 1997, working in Ballyfermot Senior College, Sutton Park School and Bruce College.

While a secondary school teacher, he studied law at King's Inns and qualified as a barrister in 1997.

He was called to the Bar in 1997 and practiced as a barrister until 2003.

He is married and has two sons and a daughter.

His brother, David McSavage is a comedian, and he is a first cousin of former RTÉ television and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy.

Andrews was first elected to public office in the June 1999 local elections as a Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Councillor.

He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency from 2002 to 2011.

The Andrews family have a long connection with Fianna Fáil.

Before entering political life, Andrews was a secondary school teacher.

He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2002 general election.

Andrews comes from a family with strong political connections.

His grandfather, Todd Andrews, fought in the War of Independence and became a founder-member of Fianna Fáil, and his grandmother, Mary Coyle, was a member of Cumann na mBan.

In June 2006, Andrews led a group of Fianna Fáil backbenchers in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a backbench committee to influence government policy.

At the 2007 general election, Andrews retained his seat in Dún Laoghaire with 8,587 votes.

He previously served as Minister of State for Children from 2008 to 2011.

Andrews was appointed Minister of State for Children in May 2008.

As Minister, he framed the Government response to the Ryan Report on Institutional Abuse.

This included an Implementation Plan that delivered an additional 200 social workers for the HSE Child and Family Services.

In April 2009, Andrews introduced the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme, which provided, for the first time, free universal access to pre-school education.

After the release of the Murphy Report into child abuse in the Dublin diocese in November 2009, Andrews, speaking at a conference in Dublin Castle, said it would be "amazing" if there were no consequences for people who were the subject of adverse findings in the report.

Asked about the position of the Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, the Minister said, "I think it's everybody's view that if adverse findings are made against an individual in a commission of inquiry then it would be amazing that there be no consequences for them.".

Bishop Murray subsequently apologised to survivors and resigned from office.

In December 2009, Andrews oversaw the introduction of government policy to lower the legal age of consent to 16.

Citing a Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution report which recommended the legal age be reduced to 16 from the current 17.

Andrews expressed the view the existing laws were "inappropriate" and out of touch with the modern reality of sexual relations between young people, and promised to publish legislation to change the Age of Consent to 16.

He noted that Ireland and Malta were "the only countries in Europe with an age of consent of 17".

On 31 January 2011, in the run up to the general election, Andrews was named Health spokesman by the party leader, Micheál Martin.

He lost his seat at the general election.

For his eight years' service as a TD, Andrews was entitled to a lump sum of €110,312, a partial TD's pension between the ages of 45 and 49 (which he has not claimed), and beginning at age 50 a full pension of approximately €16,000 per year.

He is entitled to a ministerial pension of approximately €9,000 from the age of 65.

He was CEO of GOAL from 2012 to 2016, during which the agency grew from a turnover of €60m to more than €150m.

The scheme benefited 65,000 children in 2013.

He announced his resignation to allow for ‘a fresh start in terms of leadership’ in October 2016 in the wake of a fraud in the charity that was discovered in March 2016.

He was born in Dublin and was educated at Blackrock College.

He attended university at University College Dublin (UCD).

He was the Director-General of the Dublin-based Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), a partly Irish State-funded EU think tank, since 2017.

In April 2018, Andrews was described as "part of Fianna Fáil royalty".