Eamon Gilmore

Eamon Gilmore (born 24 April 1955) is an Irish Labour Party politician. In the Government of Ireland, he holds the offices of Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. He has been the Leader of the Labour Party since September 2007. He has represented the constituency of Dún Laoghaire in Dáil Éireann since 1989, firstly as a member of the Workers' Party of Ireland, later as a member of Democratic Left and most recently as a member of the Labour Party. He served as a Minister of State at the Department of the Marine from 1994 until 1997 as part of the "Rainbow Coalition" during the Government of the 27th Dáil.

Born in County Galway, Gilmore graduated from University College Galway, becoming President of the Union of Students in Ireland. Later, as a trade union organiser, he entered local politics. As a Democratic Left TD, he was central in negotiating that party's merger with Labour. He was beaten by fellow former Democratic Left TD, Pat Rabbitte, in Labour's 2002 leadership election, and was instead appointed as the party's Environment, Housing and Local Government spokesperson. He was elected unopposed to the leadership in 2007.

At the 2011 general election, Gilmore led the Labour Party to its best ever performance with a record 37 seats. This saw Labour emerge as the second largest party in Ireland for the first time in its 99-year history. He went on to negotiate a progamme for government with Fine Gael that saw the Labour party enter government for the first time since 1997 and Gilmore appointed as Tánaiste, with four other Labour TDs having seats at cabinet.