Westmeath County Council In 1984, Penrose was co-opted on to
Westmeath County Council, and a year later, he ran in the local elections, winning his seat in the Mullingar Lough Owel local electoral area by a margin of just six votes. In the
1991 local elections, he topped the poll in the Mullingar Rural Area.
Dáil Éireann: 1992–2020 At the
1992 general election, in which the Labour Party won a record 33 seats (later surpassed in 2011), he was first elected to the
Dáil as a Labour Party TD for the
Westmeath constituency. In 2002, Penrose was a candidate for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. Although he was part of a joint ticket with
Pat Rabbitte, who won the leadership comfortably, he was narrowly defeated for the deputy leadership by
Liz McManus, polling 1,636 votes to McManus's 1,728.
Minister of State: 2011 On 9 March 2011, he was appointed as
Minister of State at the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government with special responsibility for Housing and Planning, attending meetings of the cabinet. On 15 November 2011, he resigned as Minister of State due to his opposition to the government's decision to close
Columb Barracks in
Mullingar. Penrose said: "I understand and appreciate that significant efforts were made by my Labour colleagues in government, who fully understood the depths of my feelings in this regard, to resolve this matter, but to no avail." He also resigned the Labour parliamentary party whip.
2012–2020 In February 2012,
The Phoenix magazine contrasted Penrose who "eats at the PLP tables in the Dáil restaurant and is often seen chatting to Gilmore on the corridors" with two other backbenchers who lost the party whip,
Tommy Broughan and
Patrick Nulty, both of whom had been "banished" from the Labour parliamentary offices. Penrose rejoined the parliamentary Labour Party in October 2013. He was narrowly re-elected to the Dáil at the
2016 general election, one of just seven Labour TDs to secure election. On 5 July 2018, he announced that he would not contest the
next general election.
Alan Mangan was selected as his replacement for the 2020 general election, but Mangan was not elected. ==References==