Noel Dempsey

Following the 1997 general election Dempsey was a key player in helping to negotiate a programme for government between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats. When Bertie Ahern became Taoiseach Dempsey was appointed to the position of Minister for the Environment and Local Government. His tenure as Minister has been described as one of reform and modernisation, with Frank McDonald of The Irish Times even describing Dempsey as the best holder of the environment portfolio since the position was created.^{[citation needed]}

Some of Dempsey's major achievements as Minister include the introduction of the Local Government Act 2000 which was seen as the most comprehensive reform of local government in Ireland for over a century. One of his best-known initiatives was the introduction of a levy on plastic shopping bags leading to a reduction in the usage of these bags and a serious decrease in the litter problem related to these plastic bags. Dempsey also proposed to end the 'dual mandate' whereby a person can serve as a county councillor and hold another elected office at the same time. This proposal, however, led to severe opposition from the Independent TDs who supported the government at the time and had to be deferred. The legislation eventually became law in 2003.

During his tenure as Minister, Dempsey continued to serve as the Fianna Fáil director of elections. His first major success was the election of Mary McAleese to the position of President of Ireland in 1997. Two years later in 1999 he presided over the most successful local election campaign for the party ever.

Following the re-election of the government in 2002, Dempsey became Minister for Education and Science. He took over as Minister at a time when one of the teachers' unions was extremely dissatisfied with a number of pay issues. These issues were eventually resolved in 2002 shortly after taking office. As Minister for Education, Dempsey was forced into an embarrassing climb down in 2004 on his proposal to re-introduce third-level fees. The move was opposed by the Union of Students in Ireland and by the Progressive Democrats.

In a cabinet reshuffle in September 2004, Dempsey was appointed as Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. During his tenure, he oversaw the controversial Corrib gas project. After agreeing to have an independent assessment of the raw gas pipeline planned for Kilcommon, Erris, Dempsey employed a firm to carry it out. Only after the report was concluded did it emerge that the firm was half owned by Royal Dutch Shell, a fact which they neglected to relate to the Minister. An embarrassed Dempsey was forced to hastily commission another report.

Coming to the end of his tenure at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and before the 2007 general election, his department pursued the resurrection of Digital Terrestrial Television following its failure to be established under the Broadcasting Act 2001 due to unfavourable economic conditions for venture capital around the DTT market in many countries in 2001. First, his department invited tenders to build and programme a DTT trial in Dublin and County Louth. The failure seemed to lie around a commercial network builder model and the difficulties in creating revenue generation return for such investment and the solution seems to be the involvement of broadcasters in building the networks. An amended piece of legislation amended this model towards a multiple-operator model and resulted in the Broadcasting (Amendment) Act 2007. A similar model has been successful during the intervening years in the UK and Spain.

To that end his department also established a DTT trial in August 2006 to run for 2 years around Three Rock, Dublin transmitter and Clermont Carn, in County Louth.^[3]

Following the 2007 general election Dempsey was appointed as Minister for Transport. Among the legislation introduced was the requirement of those on provisional driving licences to be accompanied by a qualified driver, which came into effect on 1 July 2008. Dempsey received widespread criticism across the Irish media over his January 2010 holiday in Malta and perceived lack of contactability when severe weather conditions led to massive disruption across Ireland's transport systems.^[4][5]

On 17 December 2010, he announced that he would not be contesting the 2011 general election.^[6] On 19 January 2011, he announced his resignation as Minister for Transport.^[7]

Dempsey receives annual pension payments of €119,177.^[8]

In August 2020, he attended a golf party in County Galway which breached the COVID-19 guidelines.^[9]