Alan Dukes

Dukes was born in Drimnagh, Dublin, in April 1945.^[1] His father, James F. Dukes, was originally from Tralee, County Kerry, and was a senior civil servant, the founding chairman and chief executive of the Higher Education Authority,^[3] while his mother was from near Ballina, County Mayo.

The Dukes family originally came from the north of England. His grandfather had served with the Royal Engineers in World War I and settled in Cork and then Kerry afterwards where he worked with the Post Office creating Ireland's telephone network. He also developed a keen interest in the Irish language.

He was educated by the Christian Brothers at Coláiste Mhuire, Dublin, and was offered several scholarships for third level on graduation, including one for the Irish language. His interest in the Irish language continues to this day, and he regularly appears on Irish-language television programmes.

On leaving school he attended University College Dublin, where he captained the fencing team to its first-ever Intervarsity title.

He became an economist with the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) in Dublin in 1969. After Ireland joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, he moved to Brussels where he was part of the IFA delegation. In this role, he was influential in framing Ireland's contribution to the Common Agricultural Policy.

He was appointed as chief of staff to Ireland's EEC commissioner Dick Burke, a former Fine Gael politician.

In the 1979 European Parliament election, Dukes stood as a Fine Gael candidate in the Munster constituency. He had strong support among the farming community, but the entry of T. J. Maher, a former president of the IFA, as an independent candidate hurt his chances of election. Maher topped the poll.

He stood again for Fine Gael at the 1981 general election in the expanded Kildare constituency, where he won a seat in the 22nd Dáil.^[4] On his first day in the Dáil, he was appointed Minister for Agriculture by the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, becoming one of only eight TDs so appointed. He was to represent Kildare for 21 years.

This minority Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government collapsed in February 1982 on the budget,^[5] but returned to power with a working majority in December 1982. Dukes was again appointed to cabinet, becoming Minister for Finance less than two years into his Dáil career.

He faced a difficult task as finance minister at this time. Ireland was heavily in debt while unemployment and emigration were high. Many of Fine Gael's plans were deferred while the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition disagreed on how to solve the economic crisis. The challenge of addressing the national finances was made difficult by electoral arithmetic and a lack of support from the opposition Fianna Fáil party led by Charles Haughey.

Dukes remained in the Department of Finance until a reshuffle in February 1986 when he was appointed as Minister for Justice.

Fine Gael failed to be returned to government at the 1987 general election and lost 19 of its 70 seats, mostly to the new Progressive Democrats. Outgoing Taoiseach and leader Garret FitzGerald stepped down and Dukes was elected leader of Fine Gael, becoming leader of the Opposition.

This was a difficult time for the country. Haughey's Fianna Fáil had fought the election on promises to increase spending and government services, and by attacking the cutbacks favoured by Fine Gael. The campaign produced the famous Fianna Fáil slogan that cuts in health spending affect the "old, the sick and the handicapped". However, on taking office, the new Taoiseach and his finance minister Ray MacSharry immediately drew up a set of cutbacks including a spate of ward and hospital closures. This presented a political opportunity for the opposition to attack the government.

However, while addressing a meeting of the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce, Dukes announced, in what became known as the Tallaght Strategy that:

When the government is moving in the right direction, I will not oppose the central thrust of its policy. If it is going in the right direction, I do not believe that it should be deviated from its course, or tripped up on macro-economic issues.

This represented a major departure in Irish politics whereby Fine Gael would vote with the minority Fianna Fáil Government if it adopted Fine Gael's economic policies for revitalising the economy.

The consequences of this statement were huge. The Haughey government was able to take severe corrective steps to restructure the economy and lay the foundations for the economic boom of the nineties. However, at a snap election in 1989 Dukes did not receive electoral credit for this approach, and the party only made minor gains, gaining four seats. The outcome was the first-ever coalition government for Fianna Fáil, whose junior partner was the Progressive Democrats led by former Fianna Fáil TD Desmond O'Malley.

The party's failure to make significant gains in 1989 left some Fine Gael TDs with a desire for a change at the top of the party. Their opportunity came in the wake of the historic 1990 presidential election. Fine Gael chose Austin Currie TD as their candidate. He had been a leading member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association movement in the 1960s and had been a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) before moving south.

Initially, Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan Snr was the favourite to win. However, after several controversies arose, relating to the brief Fianna Fáil administration of 1982, and Lenihan's dismissal as Minister for Defence midway through the campaign, the Labour Party's Mary Robinson emerged victorious. To many in Fine Gael, the humiliation of finishing third was too much to bear and a campaign was launched against Dukes' leadership. He was subsequently replaced as party leader by John Bruton.

Bruton brought him back to the front bench in September 1992, shortly before the November 1992 general election. In February 1994, Dukes became involved in a failed attempt to oust Bruton as leader and subsequently resigned from the front bench. Bruton became Taoiseach in December 1994. Dukes was not appointed to cabinet at the formation of the government.

In December 1996, Dukes returned as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications following the resignation of Michael Lowry. At the 1997 general election, Dukes topped the poll in the new Kildare South constituency, but Fine Gael lost office. He became Chairman of the Irish Council of the European Movement; in this position, he was very involved in advising many of the Eastern European countries who were then applying to join the European Union.

In 2001, he backed Michael Noonan in his successful bid to become leader of Fine Gael.