Born in Mayo in 1945, Bernard Durkan moved to Kildare when his family acquired a farm there in the early 1960s, and went on to become Fine Gael TD for the constituency in 1981.
Although he lost the seat in the first of 1982's general elections, he re-established himself in November of that year and has been returned ever since, most recently in the 1997 election when he joined Charlie McCreevy and Emmet Stagg as TDs for the new constituency of Kildare North.
His strong support for John Bruton saw him promoted to party spokesman for health in the reshuffle that followed the 1994 leadership challenge; but when the Rainbow Coalition came to power soon afterwards, he was appointed to the more modest portfolio of Minister for State in the Department of Social Welfare.
A hard-working if low-profile junior minister, his term was remarkable mainly for break-ins at his offices in Leinster House and at the Department, which occurred within two weeks of each other. At the time of the second break-in, in February 1995, he said he had no idea who had carried out the burglaries, but he believed they were unconnected.
He achieved another unique distinction among Rainbow Coalition office holders in that his period as a junior minister did not include a single trip on the Government jet or other ministerial aircraft. Answering a Dail question in May 1997, the outgoing Minister for Defence revealed that everyone but Mr Durkan had used either the Gulfstream IV jet or a turbo prop aircraft which is made available to ministers from time to time.
As a member of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts, his questioning tends to be dogged rather than forensic. But as an Opposition TD in 1993, he scored a notable victory when tabling a series of Dail questions on the number of advisers hired by the Fianna Fail/Labour government, precipitating a major controversy about the extent and cost of Labour's appointments.
He left school in his early teens to work on the original family farm near Swinford and, in his early 20s in Kildare, set up an agricultural contracting business. He ran unsuccessfully for Kildare County Council in 1974, but was co-opted two years later and chaired the body in 1986/87. He is married to Hillary Spence and they have two sons.
