Paul Gogarty
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Paul Nicholas Gogarty (born 1968) is a Green Party politician and has been a member of the Green Party since 1989. He was elected to Dáil Éireann in May 2002 in the new Dublin Mid West constituency.
A journalist, editor and media consultant until his election to the Dáil, Gogarty first stood for national election in 1992 in the old Dublin West constituency. He subsequently contested the 1996 by-election and 1997 general election. He topped the poll in the Lucan Electoral Area in the 1999 local elections in South Dublin, laying the groundwork for his 2002 success, the first and only time to date a Green Party candidate has been elected to the Dáil in a three-seat constituency.
Gogarty is currently the party spokesperson on Education & Science, Youth, and Arts, Sports and Tourism. He is a member of the Joint Oireachtas Education and Science Committee, the Oireachtas-based Friends of Science group and is a former Green Party Delegate at the National Forum on Europe.
While raising a number of national issues in the Dáil as part of his portfolio, Gogarty has also built up a reputation as an active constituency politician, representing areas such as Brittas, Clondalkin, Lucan, Newcastle, Palmerstown, Rathcoole and Saggart. Areas of local involvement include the promotion of a proper planning and transport infrastructure, the provision of community and educational facilities, fighting for funding for health care and community employment schemes and working to protect the Liffey Valley. Gogarty has worked closely with fellow Green Party politicians, including Leixlip Town Councillor Shane Fitzgerald and Clondalkin/Newcastle representative Dorothy Corrigan. Gogarty was particularly close to his childhood friend Lucan Local Councillor Fintan MacCarthy until MacCarthy's tragic death in 2006.
Gogarty's early years were spent in Palmerstown. However he has lived in Lucan most of his life. His parents are from Palmerstown and Lucan. Gogarty was educated at St Mary's Boys National School and Colaiste Padraig, Lucan, where he excelled at debating and was a member of the team which reached the all-Ireland final in the Concern Third World Debates, 1986. He attended the then-College of Commerce, Rathmines (now DIT Aungier St), where he studied journalism.
