Tim O'Malley

Tim O'Malley (born 3 July 1944) is a former Irish Progressive Democrats politician. He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Limerick East constituency and was Minister of State for Disability and Mental Health at the Department of Health and Children.^[1]

O'Malley was born in Barrington Street, in Limerick. He was educated at Crescent College, Limerick and University College Dublin where he received a Bachelor of Science Pharmacy. Before entering electoral politics, O'Malley managed his own pharmacy in the Limerick city suburb of Dooradoyle. He served as president of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union, the representative body for over 1400 community pharmacies in Ireland. He was also awarded a fellowship by the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland for services rendered to the profession. He later withdrew from management and ownership of the pharmacy business to concentrate fulltime on politics.

He first held political office in 1991 when he was elected to Limerick County Council. O'Malley was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2002 general election.^[2]

In 2001, he was appointed Health spokesperson for the Progressive Democrats, and successfully spearheaded his party's campaign to have a Treatment Purchase Fund included in the Government Health Strategy, as a means of reducing public patient waiting lists in Irish hospitals.

O'Malley comes from a family with a strong political pedigree in Limerick. He is a cousin of the former Progressive Democrats TD and party founder Desmond O'Malley, and is also a cousin of Donogh O'Malley. Two other cousins, Fiona O'Malley and Patrick O'Malley were also Progressive Democrat TDs.

When O' Malley was in government, he set up an expert group to formulate National policy for Mental Health in Ireland. In 2003, O'Malley called the Health Board system to be abolished.^[3] In 2006 he launched the new policy Vision For Change and it became government policy. He was very involved in bringing Radiotherapy Services to Limerick in spite of national reports which said that there should only be three radiotherapy centres in Ireland: in Dublin, Cork, and Galway. O' Malley also convinced his Ministerial Colleagues that a new Graduate entry Medical School should be set up in University Limerick.

In December of that year he came under increasing pressure from opposition TDs to resign following a Prime Time Investigates television programme broadcast on RTÉ One which criticised the lack of mental health services available for Irish children. He implied in the programme that long waiting lists for psychiatric services were in some cases engineered by psychiatrists themselves in search of a feeling of power.^[4]

He lost his seat at the 2007 general election.

See also

• Families in the Oireachtas

References