Early activism Higgins returned to Ireland and attended
University College Dublin, studying
English and French. For several years he was a teacher in several
Dublin inner city schools. While at university he joined the
Labour Party and became active in the
Militant Tendency, an
entryist Trotskyist group that operated within the Labour Party. Throughout his time in the Labour Party he was a strong opponent of
coalition politics, along with TDs
Emmet Stagg and
Michael D. Higgins. He was elected to the Administrative Council of the Labour Party by the membership in the 1980s. In 1989, Higgins was expelled alongside 13 other members of Militant Tendency by party leader
Dick Spring. The group eventually left the party and formed
Militant Labour, which became the Socialist Party in 1996. Higgins spent over half his salary on the Socialist Party and causes he supported. He was elected to
Dublin County Council in 1991 for the
Mulhuddart electoral area, and was until 2003 a member of
Fingal County Council. In 1996, he campaigned against
local authority water and refuse charges and contested the
Dublin West by-election, losing narrowly to
Brian Lenihan Jnr.
Dáil Éireann: 1997–2007 Higgins was first elected to
Dáil Éireann at the
1997 general election, and re-elected at the
2002 general election. He lost his seat at the
2007 general election, but regained it at the
2011 general election. From 2002 to 2007, he was a member of the
Technical Group in the Dáil which consisted of various Independent TDs,
Sinn Féin and the
Green Party grouped together for better speaking time. In 2003, Higgins accused
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of having "blood on his hands" in relation to the use of Shannon Airport by American troops. He spoke out against the
Iraq War while a TD, and addressed the Dublin leg of the
20 March 2003 International Day of Action. In April 2003,
Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell addressed Higgins during a Dáil debate, saying "I do not take lectures on democracy from a Trotskyite communist like Deputy Joe Higgins." On 19 September 2003, Higgins was sentenced to one month in
Mountjoy Prison as a result of his protest against the non-collection of refuse in his constituency during the
Anti-Bin Tax Campaign. He was also prominent in the successful 2005 campaign to bring
Nigerian school student Olukunle Eluhanla back to Ireland after he had been deported. Higgins remains an opponent of the deportation policy. When
President Mary McAleese telephoned Higgins in 2004 to inform him of her decision to seek re-election, he told her that her office was "superfluous and should be abolished". McAleese was reported to have been left speechless. At the
2004 European Parliament election, Higgins received 23,200 (5.5%) votes in the Dublin constituency, double his 1999 result, but did not win a seat. Higgins used his platform in the Dáil to raise the issue of
exploitation of
migrant and guest workers in Ireland. He and others claimed that many companies were paying migrants below the minimum wage and, in some cases, not paying overtime rates. In March 2005, Higgins and a delegation of
Turkish ex-employees of
GAMA Endustri, a Turkish construction firm working in Ireland, travelled to
Amsterdam,
Netherlands, where they discovered that GAMA had been secreting up to
€30 million in workers' wages without their knowledge. He expressed opposition in the Dáil to the jailing of the
Rossport Five in July 2005. He raised the outsourcing of jobs by
Irish Ferries in the Dáil in November 2005, requesting new legislation to regulate what he described as "these modern slavers". In May 2006, Higgins boycotted an address to the Dáil by
Australian Prime Minister John Howard owing to
Australia's role in the
Iraq War, the country's "criminal" legislation on worker's rights, and its theft of oil and gas from the poor people of
East Timor, describing it as "reminiscent of
Margaret Thatcher". In October 2006, Higgins requested the suspension of normal business in the Dáil after it emerged that
Ryanair had upped its share in
Aer Lingus overnight, amid concerns for workers' rights and passenger welfare. In 2008, Higgins was a political opponent of the Irish government's first
Treaty of Lisbon referendum. He described the success of the "No" campaign as "a huge rebuff to the Irish political establishment".
European Parliament: 2009–2011 ,
Brussels in 2009 Higgins successfully contested the
2009 European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency, beating two incumbents,
Mary Lou McDonald of
Sinn Féin and
Eoin Ryan of
Fianna Fáil, for the third and final seat. He was elected on the same day to
Fingal County Council for the
Castleknock electoral area, topping the poll. As Irish law prohibits politicians having a
dual mandate, Higgins vacated this council seat in July 2009 and was replaced by Matt Waine. He was a member of the
European United Left–Nordic Green Left (EUL–NGL) group in the
European Parliament, the
European Parliament's
Committee on International Trade, and the delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia. He was also a substitute member of the
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the
Committee on Petitions and the delegation for relations with the
Mercosur countries. In 2009, Higgins was a political opponent of the Irish government's re-run of the
Treaty of Lisbon referendum. He said the guarantees did not change the Treaty. Higgins said, "The overall agenda here is quite simply the ruling classes, or the classes of Europe intend to stride on to the world stage as a powerful economic entity. And they want to be as powerful as the
US, meaning they want a stronger foreign policy and a military wing to back them up." He also spoke out against Ireland's Catholic bishops, who claimed neither a "Yes" nor a "No" vote would threaten the unborn, saying that EU spending on arms ought to be enough for the bishops to join the "No" campaign. On 23 November 2010, Higgins walked out of a meeting of Irish MEPs with EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner
Olli Rehn, after two minutes in
Strasbourg, prompting criticism from Fine Gael MEP
Gay Mitchell. During a debate at the
European Parliament in Strasbourg, Higgins described the
European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) as "nothing more than another tool to cushion major European banks from the consequences of their reckless speculation on the financial markets". He claimed the EFSF was a "mechanism to make working class people throughout Europe pay for the crisis of a broken financial system and a crisis-ridden European capitalism". He accused
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and
President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy of effectively transferring tens of billions of euros of private bad debts "on to the shoulders of the Irish people". Barroso rejected the claims, instead blaming Irish banks and lax regulation for Ireland's problems, saying: "To the distinguished member of this Parliament who comes from Ireland, who asked a question suggesting that the problems of Ireland were created by Europe, let me tell you: the problems of Ireland were created by the irresponsible financial behaviour of some Irish institutions, and by the lack of supervision in the Irish market".
Paul Murphy replaced Higgins as an MEP when Higgins was re-elected to the Dáil.
Dáil Éireann: 2011–2016 Higgins was elected again as TD for Dublin West at the 2011 general election. He won the third seat (of four) with 8,084 first preference votes. In his first speech in the
31st Dáil, he opposed the nomination of Fine Gael's
Enda Kenny as
Taoiseach. Higgins announced that he would "put up a principled opposition to the Fine Gael-Labour coalition which is most likely", since they are "going to carry on with the same policies as Fianna Fáil, making working-class people pay for the bankers' bad gambling debts". He promised to work with the other United Left Alliance TDs "as a coherent, principled opposition". He suggested the creation of a national exploration company which would allow the state to retain any profits obtained from natural resources. Ahead of the occasion of
Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the Republic of Ireland in May 2011, Higgins asked Enda Kenny in the Dáil if "the Queen of England might be politely asked to contribute to the cost of her bed & breakfast during her visit to Ireland", observing that "the Irish people needed the financial help since they could soon be
sleeping rough, as the country faced
bankruptcy to pay off the debts of German and French banks, which had recklessly gambled and lost in the
Irish property bubble". On 4 May 2011, Enda Kenny was forced to apologise to Higgins in the Dáil after falsely accusing him of being a supporter of
Osama bin Laden after Higgins offered criticism of
his assassination by the CIA. Higgins had asked the Taoiseach: "Is
assassination only justified if the target is a reactionary, anti-democratic, anti-human rights obscurantist like bin Laden?". He vowed there would be a nationwide campaign of "people power" against any household and water charges. In September 2011, Higgins committed to facilitating the nomination of Senator
David Norris for a place on the ballot paper ahead of the
2011 Irish presidential election, despite multiple controversies enveloping the candidate. On the occasion of the publication of the Keane report on mortgage arrears in October 2011, Higgins criticised Enda Kenny's government and said the report was "a banker's charter written by bankers". His description of allowing the banks to solve their own problems as being "like sending a bunch of marauding foxes that had raided a henhouse back to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to their victims" was quoted several times by other commentators in the media. Higgins addressed "The EU in Crisis" public debate, held at the Ireland Institute in Dublin in October 2011. He served as
Ruth Coppinger's election agent in the
2011 Dublin West by-election, held alongside the presidential election. At her campaign launch Higgins said Taoiseach Enda Kenny was engaging in a "cynical manipulation of the political agenda" by delaying the publication of his government's comprehensive spending review until after the elections. In the Dáil, Higgins accused
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore of doing nothing for the 14 Irish citizens being held "
incommunicado" by
Israel in November 2011. In December 2011, Higgins described as a disgraceful campaign of intimidation the fines imposed by the government on people who were unable to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget and said to Enda Kenny that he would be "the new
Captain Boycott of austerity in this country". He asked that
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan provide
EBS staff with the 13th month end-of-year payment they were being denied. In September 2012, he publicly disagreed with former Socialist Party colleague
Clare Daly, saying it was "unfortunate" that she had resigned from the party, but that it was impossible for Daly under the banner of the Socialist Party to continue to offer political support to
Mick Wallace, who was at that time embroiled in scandal. He announced in April 2014 that he would not contest the next Dáil election. At the time he stated his belief that the "baton of elected representation" should be carried by another generation of Socialist Party politicians — like
Ruth Coppinger and
Paul Murphy. ==See also==