Brian Hayes: Challenge to Enda Kenny marked turning point in career

Brian Hayes, who has announced he will retire from politics next year when his term as an MEP comes to an end, has been at the centre of Fine Gael politics for almost a quarter of a century.

During the early period of the first Enda Kenny-led government he was one of four young ministers – along with Lucinda Creighton, Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar – spoken about as a potential future leader of the party. But although he was a well-regarded junior minister at the Department of Finance, there was no promotion to Cabinet in sight and in 2014 he stepped back from national politics to run successfully for a seat in the European Parliament in the Dublin constituency.

Moving his young family to Brussels (though returning to Dublin frequently for constituency and party work) he threw himself into the work of the parliament, becoming probably Ireland’s most prominent MEP.

He was a member of the powerful economic and monetary affairs committee, developing an expertise especially in banking matters.

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Last summer, the family moved back to Dublin, clearly a prelude to today’s move.

Appointed in his mid-20s to the Seanad in 1995 by the former taoiseach John Bruton, to whom he was close, Hayes went on to win a seat in Dublin South West in 1997, though he lost it in Fine Gael’s great disaster of 2002, when the party was cut down to just 31 seats in the face of Bertie Ahern’s boom-time election juggernaut.

Returning to the Seanad, he worked tirelessly on rebuilding the party nationally and in his constituency. He won back the seat in 2007, becoming the party’s education spokesman.

In 2010 he made the fateful decision to join Richard Bruton’s challenge to Enda Kenny, quickly emerging as one of the leaders of the rebellion. But Kenny – bolstered by support from Phil Hogan – fought off the challenge to his leadership. Several months later, when Kenny formed a coalition government with Labour, some of the plotters – including Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney – were forgiven and offered Cabinet posts.

Like Creighton, Hayes was only partially forgiven, becoming a junior minister. His decision to run for Europe three years later stemmed directly from his belief that his domestic career was at best stalled.

As an MEP, he maintained a close involvement in party affairs however, and was one of the chief strategists and organisers of the 2016 general election campaign – a campaign which although it ultimately led to a return to government, backfired badly.

He was regarded as a big beast of the party, and a possible return to national politics was occasionally mooted.

However, the 2014 move to Europe was a signal that the step back was not temporary. His decision, at the age of 49 to join the Irish Banking & Payments Federation, brings to end a political career that shone brightly for a long time, and delivered much – though many expected it to deliver more.