Michael Ferris

Michael Ferris (21 November 1931 – 20 March 2000) was an Irish Labour Party politician who served for more than twenty years as a member of the Oireachtas, as both a Senator and a Teachta Dála (TD). Before becoming a full-time politician, he was an administrator in a veterinary practice.

Ferris was from Bansha, County Tipperary.

At the 1987 general election, Ferris unsuccessfully stood again in Tipperary South, but was afterwards re-elected to the 18th Seanad, again by the Agricultural Panel. In the 1989 election to the European Parliament he was defeated in the Munster constituency, trailing far behind his Labour colleague, Eileen Desmond, who narrowly missed a seat. However, polling for the 1989 general election was held on the same day, and he was finally elected to the Dáil, taking his seat in the 26th Dáil on his third attempt. He was re-elected at the 1992 general election and again at the 1997 general election, taking the last seat in each case. The subsequent by-election for his Dáil seat was held on 2 June and won by an independent candidate, Séamus Healy.

Personal life Ferris championed the rural agricultural economy and was Chairman of the Bansha Agricultural and Industrial Show Society for a number of years. He was married twice, firstly to Josephine Tobin of Bansha until her death in 1978, and in 1982 to Ellen Kiely of Tipperary in a ceremony in Cormac's Chapel in the Rock of Cashel. Ferris lived in Rosanna, County Tipperary. He had six children.