Mayo Fianna Fáil TD Beverley Flynn has surprised colleagues by deciding not to contest the forthcoming general election.
Ms Flynn has been embroiled in controversy during her 13 years in the Dáil and was expelled from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on three occasions.
A daughter of the former Minister and EU Commissioner Padraig Flynn, she first ran for the Dáil in 1994 in a byelection to fill the vacancy created by the departure of her father from the Dáil to take up the Commissioner’s post in Brussels. However, she lost to Michael Ring of Fine Gael.
Ms Flynn was elected to the Dáil in the general election of 1997 and was widely tipped for rapid promotion. However, two years later she ran into conflict with her party over a Dáil motion asking her father to clarify allegations about his receipt of a financial contribution from developer Tom Gilmartin. Ms Flynn voted against the motion and was expelled from the parliamentary party as a result.
She was accepted back into the parliamentary party within a year but was again expelled as a result of a failed libel action against RTÉ for a report on her activities while she worked for National Irish Bank.
She was again accepted back into the parliamentary party and ran successfully as a Fianna Fáil candidate in the 2002 general election.
In 2004 she was again expelled from the parliamentary party and also from the Fianna Fáil organisation when the Supreme Court upheld the High Court judgement in the libel case. She subsequently settled a court case with RTÉ over the €2.4 million costs of her libel action.
Ms Flynn was elected as an Independent in the 2007 general election but voted for the election of Bertie Ahern as taoiseach and was later accepted back into Fianna Fáil.