Garret FitzGerald - Post-Taoiseach Period

Post-Taoiseach Period

FitzGerald retired as leader of Fine Gael immediately after the election by the Dáil of Charles Haughey as Taoiseach, to be replaced by Alan Dukes. His autobiography All in a Life appeared in 1991, immediately becoming a best-seller. He retired completely from politics at the 1992 general election. His wife, Joan, predeceased him, dying in 1999 after a long illness.

After that FitzGerald wrote a weekly column every Saturday in The Irish Times, and lectured widely at home and abroad on public affairs.

In a leading article on his death the Irish Times said that

He was an extraordinary Irishman who fashioned our future in so many ways.

and that he was the papers longest-serving contributor and columnist, for over 57 years. He came out of retirement to campaign for a "yes" vote in the second Irish referendum on the EU's Treaty of Nice, held in 2002. He held the post of Chancellor of the National University of Ireland from 1997 to 2009. In March 2000, Fitzgerald was on the Board of Directors of Election.com, when it conducted the world's first public election ever held over the Internet, which was the Arizona Democratic Primary, which was won by Al Gore; in that primary, voter turnout increased more than 500% over the 1996 primary.

FitzGerald took a leading part in the campaign for the second referendum on the EU's Treaty of Lisbon in 2009. He argued for Ireland to continue with European integration. FitzGerald has been scathing of the record of the Fianna Fáil led Government since 1997 on the economy and the national finances. He was a frequent, critic in his column in The Irish Times, of the loss of competitiveness that occurred and the inflation caused by the tax cuts and excessive public spending increases of the Celtic Tiger era. In 2009, FitzGerald received a new ministerial car, the first and only one to be purchased by the state since an economic recession hit the country in 2008. In 2010, FitzGerald appeared on RTÉ's "Top 40 Irishmen" list.

He was Vice-President of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland for his last 20 years.