The former lord mayor of Dublin and junior minister, Mr Michael Keating, first entered public life in the early 1970s.
The secondary school teacher was elected to Dublin City Council in 1974 and to the Dáil for Fine Gael in Dublin North Central in 1977. He was a Fine Gael TD for Dublin Central from 1981 to 1986 and during this time served as junior minister at the Department of Education with responsibility for sport.
In 1986, a number of years after he had left the Department, it was alleged he had left the Department with bills totalling £2,500 for election literature incurred while he was minister. Mr Keating denied he had acted improperly and dismissed the allegations as part of a "nasty smear campaign".
He defected to the Progressive Democrats that same year (1986) and later became the party's deputy leader, but his decision in May 1989 not to contest the next general election came as a surprise. He was apparently retiring from politics at the relatively young age of 42.
Shortly afterwards he published a novel, Day of Reckoning, which was launched by Mr Charles Haughey. Mr Keating described the work as an international thriller with settings in the US, Spain and Italy in which murder and intrigue were important ingredients.
His flirtation with politics was not over, however, and he returned to Fine Gael and stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in Dublin South West in the 1992 general election. He won a council seat in 1991 for Fine Gael in Dublin.
Mr Keating served as Dublin's lord mayor in 1983-84.
During his term he complained that the lord mayor's allowance was "woefully inadequate" and that the catering in the Mansion House had been carried out by himself and his wife.
Born in 1946, he grew up on Dublin's North Circular Road, the son of a prison officer. He attended O'Connell's CBS and later UCD, where he studied for an arts degree and then taught for five years at the Convent of Mercy in Coolock.
He met his wife, Kathryn Keaveney, from Roscommon, while at UCD. They have two children, Dawn-Marie and Shane.
In October 1997 he was arrested and questioned by gardaí. At the time he was carrying two bank drafts worth £48,000 made out to George Mitchell, a leading Dublin criminal. He said they were given to him by a business associate.
Two years ago he was named in a British court as a "partner in crime" in a £20 million VAT fraud involving the export of non-existent computer parts from the UK.
A Limerick man was jailed for eight years for his part in the fraud, but Mr Keating denied involvement and said he had been "massively smeared".
• Mr Keating could not be contacted for comment last night.