Pádraig Faulkner

Pádraig Faulkner (12 March 1918 – 1 June 2012) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann from 1980 to 1981, Minister for Defence 1979 to 1980, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and Minister for Tourism and Transport from 1977 to 1979, Minister for Education from 1969 to 1973, Minister for the Gaeltacht and Minister for Lands from 1968 to 1969 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1965 to 1968. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Louth constituency from 1957 to 1987.

Faulkner was born in Dundalk, County Louth, in 1918. He was educated at Dundalk CBS and St Patrick's College of Education in Drumcondra, Dublin, where he qualified as a national school teacher. Faulkner grew up in Dunleer in south Louth, where his father was a strong supporter of Fine Gael, while his mother supported the more Republican and working-class Fianna Fáil. He favoured his mother's political outlook and joined Fianna Fáil. Faulkner unsuccessfully contested the Louth by-election in 1954 but at the 1957 general election, he was elected to Dáil Éireann winning a second seat for the party with Frank Aiken as they returned to Government.

In 1965, Faulkner was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Gaeltacht by the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. He was appointed to the Cabinet by the new Taoiseach Jack Lynch in 1968 and served in every Fianna Fáil-led government until 1980. During the Arms Crisis he was a Lynch loyalist. He was one of a number of TDs and Senators who gathered in Dublin Airport to welcome Lynch home from the United States after the defendants had been found not guilty at the Arms Trial. This gathering has been arranged by his constituency colleague, Frank Aiken. Nine years later in 1979 one of those defendants, Charles Haughey, was elected Taoiseach. Faulkner was retained in the Cabinet until 1980 as Minister of Defence when he was elected Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann. It was rumoured by various political correspondents that George Colley insisted that he personally appoint the Ministers for Defence and Justice in the 1979 Cabinet. Faulkner rebuts this in his autobiography. Haughey as a former Army Officer took offence to that claim from certain sections of the media that he would subvert the Army as his father had died as an Army Officer himself.

Faulkner was subsequently appointed to the Council of State by President Patrick Hillery in 1984. He also played a notable role in the establishment of the Regional College of Technology in Dundalk now Dundalk Institute of Technology and the Faulkner Building is named after him as a result. Faulkner, while Minister for Transport & Power, also oversaw part of the introduction of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit.

He died at the age of 94, on 1 June 2012 in Dunleer.