Paddy Harte

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Paddy Harte OBE (born 26 July 1931) is a retired Irish Fine Gael party politician who served for 36 years as TD for Donegal North-East. He was born in Lifford, County Donegal in 1931.

He was first elected to the 17th Dáil in the 1961 general election, and re-elected at eleven further general elections. In the 22nd Dáil, from 1981–82, he was Minister of State at the Department of Posts & Telegraphs, in Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald's government. In 1989 he was an unsuccessful candidate in the Connaught-Ulster constituency at the elections to the European Parliament.

Harte lost his seat in the 1997 general election to the Independent Fianna Fáil candidate Harry Blaney. He unsuccessfully contested the 1997 elections to Seanad Éireann on the Industrial and Commercial Panel, and then retired from politics.

Since his retirement Harte has been involved in a number of projects, including the Messines Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium which was opened in November 1998 by President Mary Mc Aleese, Queen Elizabeth II and King Albert of Belguim to commemorate all Irishmen, both Catholic and Protestant, who died in the World War I. He received an honorary OBE for this work in October, 2006.^[1]