John Brady, a Bray-based TD for Sinn Féin, is a former carpenter and community activist.

The 51-year-old, who is transport and communications spokesman for the party, first cut his teeth as a campaigner for better services in a community which he said had been left behind by successive governments.

He became involved with electoral politics when he won a Bray Town Council seat for Sinn Féin in 2004. Five years later, he won a county council seat.

He narrowly missed out on a Dáil seat in the 2011 general election to Stephen Donnelly.

A self-employed carpenter by trade, he became a full-time public representative in 2013 after his business folded due to the economic downturn.

He became Sinn Féin’s first Wicklow Dáil representative for 100 years in 2016.

A father of five – with children ranging in age from 12 to early 30s – he became a grandfather for the first time earlier this year.