Is there any point being a government party TD if you can't get at least a junior ministry? Bernard Durken has spent 38 out of his 40 years in the Dail a backbencher.
You can spend more time on your constituency work, whilst still actively supporting government legislation, or proposing legislation yourself.
You can effectively lobby ministers, and have an imput into policy making that way.
There's more to being a TD than running a department. Constituency work, proposing legislation, cutting ribbons and shaking hands at local events. I'd say a lot of them prefer to be in the backbench. It's likely a more stable job since your f*ck ups aren't plastered all over the media.
Who is the longest serving minister for anything in this country?
Peter Fitzpatrick snapped after spending about 7 years as a backbencher, he said that he felt like nothing but a "button pusher" and he went independent.
He’s a rich man, or should be unless he has a few vices or fluttered it away… without ever having to put his head above the parapet..
Pretty sure that was more to do with the Abortion referendum that had happened a few months earlier. He wanted to vote against the legislation when it came up.
The Louth TD was a vocal opponent to the referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment and had indicated he would vote against the legislation when it enters the Oireachtas later this year.
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Sean Lemass spent 19 years as Minister for Enterprise and Industry, but that was broken service.
Dev spent 15 years 346 days continuous as Minister for External Affairs.
He managed to get the Lotto won didn't he. That'll be on the pamphlets next GE.
They can also end up on committees, a key element of the legislative process.
Durkan spent a lot of that time in opposition, some of it in Government as the FG Chief Whip and is now realistically too old to be given a ministry (he's 76 and the oldest in the Dáil - Kildare North had one of the oldest candidate setups ever last time with him, Catherine Murphy and Emmet Stagg on the ballot)
A bit of both, he said he wasn't running again but changed his mind and then wasn't selected by FG as a candidate so ran as an Independent and won. Him not being selected was likely related to his abortion stance, and his general uselessness.
If a Govt has the support of, say, 90 seats of the 160 in the Dail, and given that the Govt is made up of 15 Ministers, then plenty of the 90 will never be Ministers.
Don't forget the junior ministers. There are currently TWENTY of them! That reduces the odds of being a backbencher quite a bit (although the point still stands that you're more likely to be a back bencher than a minister)
It could be worse, you could be sitting on the backbenches of an opposition party with nothing better to do than whinge and complain continuously.
A politician has one job really and that is to be re-elected so by that measure Bernard Durkan has been a tremendous success.
He must gotten an eye-watering amount of potholes filled in
He's still a couple years younger than the president of the United States of America
