Gerry Breen

Who is Gerry Breen?

Gerry Breen is an Irish former Fine Gael politician and Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Born in Clontarf in Dublin, educated in Colaiste Mhuire and UCD, Breen first entered politics in 1981 when he joined Fine Gael. At the 1999 local elections, he was elected to Dublin City Council representing the five seat Clontarf local electoral area. He served as Fine Gael group leader on the council from 2004 until 2010.

Elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin in June 2010, he campaigned to have a greater distribution of drug maintenance treatment out of Dublin city centre and into the suburbs and also called for anti-begging laws to be introduced. Both these comments caused controversy.

He ran at the 2011 general election for the Dublin North–West constituency, despite not being a resident in the constituency obtained 2,988 votes. He was not elected, being beaten for the last seat by Labour Party candidate John Lyons by 2,000 votes. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for Seanad Éireann in 2007 and 2011. Recently, he courted controversy by campaigning to abolish the Seanad just two years after running for it for the second time unsuccessfully.