Denis Naughten (45) was born in Drum, County Roscommon, site of the Meehambee Dolmen, a portal tomb estimated to be 5,500 years old, and educated at St Aloysius College, Athlone which closed last year, University College Dublin and University College Cork, where he did a PhD in Food Microbiology (impressively focused on extracellular polysaccharide – complex carbohydrates – production in lactic acid bacteria). Just as DeV was said to be one of only three people in the world who understood Relativity, Naughtenites allege he is driven by the scientific approach. He is married to Mary Tiernan and they have four children. In the New Year of 2017, Naughten was nearly killed while cycling with his wife along a road between Roscommon town and Fuerty when struck by a car, sustaining back injuries. Naughten’s father, Liam, was a Fine Gael TD (1982- 1987) and was Cathaoirleach of Seanad Eireann from 1995 to late 1996. Young Denis succeeded him following his tragic early death aged 52 in a car crash, at a by-election to Seanad Éireann in 1997 , making him the youngest ever senator. He has the ever-important keen interest in all sports and has played Gaelic football with Clann na nGael GAA club and held both county and provincial athletic titles with Moore AC. He was elected for the Longford–Roscommon constituency in the 1997 general election, aged just 24, and re-elected in 2002 when he and Simon Coveney were initially touted as the ace young guns who might replace the jaded Michael Noonan – before Big and wily Phil Hogan moved in to clear the path for Enda Kenny – with preferment promised. Within his first few weeks in the Dáil, he duly became Fine Gael Spokesperson on Youth Affairs, School Transport and Adult Education. This appears to be his level. He was re-elected at the 2007 general election for the new constituency of Roscommon–South Leitrim. In June 2010, he unwisely supported Richard Bruton’s leadership challenge to Enda Kenny, after he had been promised the deputy leadership in a Bruton shadow cabinet. Following Kenny’s victory in a motion of confidence, Naughten was not re-appointed to the front bench and there was bad blood between him and Kenny, perhaps partly because Kenny and Liam Naughten had been close. In October 2010, he was appointed as party Deputy Spokesperson on Health. He was a member of the Governing Council of the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa which aims to strengthen parliamentary democracy in Africa and keep Africa high on the political agenda in Europe. He prevailed again at the 2011 general election. He voted against the Government in a motion to reverse cuts at Roscommon Hospital and lost the party whip. This parochial issue was the making of him; defined him. His party and constituency colleague Frank Feighan voted with the Government on the controversial issue, despite intense pressure from angry locals. The Government won the vote. On 13 September 2013, he and six other expellees formed the Reform Alliance, described as a “loose alliance” rather than a political party or “loose cannons”. The now largely forgotten grouping included TDs Lucinda Creighton, Billy Timmins, Terence Flanagan, and Peter Mathews as well as Senators Paul Bradford and Fidelma Healy-Eames who lost the whip over an abortion vote. In the run-up to the 2016 General Election Naughten told the Connacht Tribune he would be willing to prop-up a minority Government after the general election – as long as it maintained and invested in Portiuncula Hospital Ballinasloe and Roscommon Hospital, and local health services. He seems to draw his political tempo from his service on Roscommon County Council and the Western Health Board from January 1997 to October 2003. Any more profound political philosophy or vision of the common good has never crossed his lips. Naughten is really a rural populist, the Big Man, with a veneer of scientificism. His website is propelled by slogans like ‘Putting People First” and promises to “Get More Jobs to Cross The Shannon” and “Ensure That Every Child Leaving Primary School Can Read and Write”. Naughten was re-elected in 2016 and the numbers catapulted him to a ministry. The ambitious and crafty Naughten emerged as Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment in Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael/Independent minority government after two months of negotiation following the 2016 general election. He styles himself an Independent and has long dumped both Lucinda Creighton’s Reform Alliance and Shane Ross’s Independent Alliance. A year into his second government, Enda Kenny was asked if he would accept Minister Naughten back into Fine Gael. He said that was a matter for Naughten, and that he was doing a good job as an Independent Minister. He said: “How am I getting on with Denis Naughten? Great”. With Enda Kenny gone his rehabilitation is complete. So… time to see if the quiet man with the scientific bent is any good – playing, as they say, senior hurling. COMMUNICATIONS He has little interest in the communications brief, as it is of little value to his constituency. He has been almost invisible as minister for data protection – for Google and Facebook. The underpowered Data Protection Commissioner serves under the aegis of his department from an unimpressive office in Portarlington. Ireland took Facebook’s word for it that very few of the 87 million people compromised by Cambridge Analytica were Irish. He has, however, pushed for wider availability for high-speed broadband. Partly because viability has been undermined by Ireland’s unique fetish for one-off housing, Eir (successor to Eircom) pulled out of the bidding for the National Broadband Plan. Naughten was notably unable to get Eir, which owns much of the national phone infrastructure, to bid for the least attractive – farthest flung – next tranche of business, after it had delivered the most lucrative tranche to 300,000 houses in denser communities. Naughten may have been so reluctant to accept the logic of densifiying rural communities, anathema to his electorate, that he was blinded to its economic downsides. HIS MOST INFAMOUS OUTING IN HIS MEDIA
