Barry Andrews

Barry Andrews (born 16 May 1967) is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He is a currently a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dún Laoghaire constituency.^[1] He is the Minister of State for Children since May 2008.

Early life

He was born in Dublin and was educated at Blackrock College and University College Dublin, where he received a Masters Degree in Modern History. He worked as a secondary school teacher from 1991 until 1997, when he entered King's Inns and qualified as a barrister. Andrews was first elected to public office in June 1999, when he was elected to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

Teachta Dála

He was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 2002 general election. Andrews comes from a family with strong political connections. His grandfather, Todd Andrews fought in the War of Independence and became a founder-member of Fianna Fáil, while his grandmother, Mary Coyle, was a member of Cumann na mBan.

Andrews's father, David Andrews served as a TD from 1965 to 2002 and is a former Foreign Minister, while his uncle, Niall Andrews, was a former Fianna Fáil TD and MEP and his cousin Chris Andrews (son of Niall Andrews), is also a TD. His brother David is a popular street comedian.

In June 2006, Andrews led a group of Fianna Fáil backbenchers in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a backbench committee to influence Government Policy. At the 2007 general election, Andrews retained his seat in Dún Laoghaire with 8,587 votes.^[2]

Murphy Report

After the release of the Murphy Report into child abuse in the Dublin diocese in November 2009. Minister Andrews, speaking at a conference in Dublin Castle, said it would be “amazing” if there were no consequences for people who were the subject of adverse findings in the report. Asked about the position of Bishop of Limerick Donal Murray, the Minister said: “The Taoiseach obviously last week in response to the Murphy commission indicated that it wasn’t for the Government to decide on the ecumenical appointments one way or the other . . . Nevertheless, I think it’s everybody’s view that if adverse findings are made against an individual in a commission of inquiry then it would be amazing that there be no consequences for them. [1] “Clearly pressure had been exerted from within the church on Bishop Murray, it would appear, and those consequences may come to pass. Obviously we don’t know exactly the nature of that.” Andrews said he “would be very concerned if the entire response in terms of our own public debate on the entire Murphy commission is about an individual appointment or otherwise where we continue to have a serious child sexual abuse problem in this country and even in the past clerical child sexual abuse was a fraction of what was going on and it is unfortunate that where we have an opportunity to think about how do we improve things in the future that we would be concentrating on something that quite frankly is very much a part of it, albeit not a great part of it in my view.”

He said he was also disappointed at the absence of a response from Rome. Minister Andrews added that “Naturally we would expect there to be some reflections from Rome on what it means for the delivery of safe practices for children in this country in terms of the Catholic Church and how they are as patrons of our national schools and how they are going to provide us with the reassurance that they have and will comply with best practice in child protection in the future.” [2]

Age of consent proposal

In December 2009, Andrews has expressed his personal support for a lowering of the legal age of consent to 16. He said the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution recommended the legal age be reduced to 16 from the current 17, to make it “the same as almost everywhere in Europe and Northern Ireland”. If the Government accepted the reduction, it would require a rethink on other issues, and “I support on a personal level, to reduce the age of consent to 16”, to reflect reality, he said. The Minister said the proposals dealt with very sensitive areas such as “a child who presents with a mental health issue and doesn’t want their parents to know, or possibly their parents are the cause of the problem” and the issue was “whether the practitioner can do anthing without the parents’ involvement”. [3]

See also

• Families in the Oireachtas

References

External links

• Barry Andrews' official website
• Barry Andrews' page on the Fianna Fáil website