Political Career
Gilmore was elected to Dún Laoghaire Borough Council and also to Dublin County Council on 22 June 1985. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1989 general election as a member of the Workers' Party for the constituency of Dún Laoghaire, and has been re-elected at every subsequent general election.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was linked with Proinsias De Rossa in attempting to jettison some of the Workers' Party's Marxist aspect and the party towards an acceptance of free market economics. Secondly, media accusations had once again surfaced regarding the continued existence of the Official IRA who, it was alleged, remained armed and involved in fund-raising robberies, money laundering and other forms of criminality.
In an attempt to address these issues Gilmore and De Rossa along with their supporters sought to distance themselves from alleged paramilitary activity at a special Árd Fheis held at Dún Laoghaire in on 15 February 1992. A motion proposed by De Rossa and General Secretary Des Geraghty sought to stand down the existing membership, elect an 11 member provisional executive council and make several other significant changes in party structures was defeated. The following day at an Ard Chomhairle meeting, Gilmore resigned from the Workers' Party and joined with Proinsias De Rossa and five other Workers' Party TDs to create a new political party Democratic Left (originally known as New Agenda).
In the 'Rainbow Coalition', between 1994 and 1997, Gilmore served as Minister of State at the Department of the Marine where he is credited for overseeing major reform in port ownership, investment in port development, banning nuclear vessels from Irish seas and restricting dumping at sea.
With Labour's Brendan Howlin, Gilmore was a central figure in the negotiations that led to the merger of Democratic Left with the Labour Party in 1999 under the Leadership of Ruairi Quinn.
After Quinn's resignation in 2002, Gilmore unsuccessfully contested the Leadership won by former student union and political colleague Pat Rabbitte.
From 2002 to 2007 he sat on the Labour Party front bench as Environment, Housing and Local Government Spokesperson.
Read more about this topic: Eamon Gilmore
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