BREAKING NEWS: Death of former Kildare TD Emmet Stagg

The death of Emmet Stagg marks the passing of the foremost staunchly socialist parliamentarian to represent County Kildare on the national political stage for the better part of two decades

A left leaning politician within the Labour Party, he was identified as being on the extreme left wing of the party. He opposed coalition with Fine Gael but, during his career, he twice served as a Minister for State in coalition administrations.

He became Minister of State at the Department of the Environment in the Fianna Fáil/Labour administration created after the 1991 general election. 

Two years later Stagg was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications in 1994, in the so-called  Rainbow Coalition Government of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left.

A native of Hollymount, County Mayo he came from a large family, the best known of whom was his republican activist brother Frank.

At a trial in Birmingham, UK, in 1973 Frank was found to be the co-commanding officer of a IRA unit in Coventry

Frank Stagg died on hunger strike in prison in the UK after 62 days without food, having been sentenced to ten years in prison and initially held at a top security jail on the Isle of Wight.

He went on hunger strike seeking to be returned to Ireland and an end to prison work - which republican inmates generally opposed on the basis that they were political prisoners.

His death led to considerable controversy, even disgrace, over where he should be buried. Emmet and Frank’s widow wanted to have him buried in the family plot in the cemetery in Hollymount.

However, two other brothers and the republican movement wanted him buried in the republican plot in Ballina.

At the last minute the Fine Gael led Irish government diverted the flight carrying his remains to Shannon Airport from Dublin, where republicans, family members and journalists were waiting.

It’s estimated there were 1,600 gardaí and soldiers at the funeral. The grave was covered in concrete and guarded for six months. Later it was dug up and reinterred at a republican plot.

For a time afterwards brother Emmet, who always maintained he was following his mother’s wishes, was provided with a firearm by the authorities for his own protection because he had been threatened by republicans.

Born on October 1, 1944, he was first elected to Kildare County Council in 1979 representing the then Celbridge electoral area.

He was returned as a councillor in the 1985 election, this time topping the poll and was elected on the first count with more than two quotas and with more than 1,500 first preferences ahead of third placed Bernard Durkan.

He was returned again in the 1991 elections finishing ahead of current Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, who was then representing the Workers Party

Stagg was first elected to the Dáil at the 1987 election and this was a time when the dual mandate existed which allowed councillors to serve as TDs.

In 1987 Kildare was a single constituency with five seats  before population growth led to the creation of Kildare North and Kildare South a decade later.

Castlemitchell grocer Joe Bermingham had been the standard bearer for the Labour Party since winning the seat in 1973 in what was then a three seater.

In ‘87 Stagg was the second TD home, marginally behind Fianna Fáil’s Paddy Power.

There was another general election in 1989 which saw Stagg the third Dáil representative elected for Kildare behind the poll topping Charlie McCreevy.

The high water mark of his career came in the 1992 election when he topped the poll with 21% of the first preference votes cast, comfortably exceeding the quota by more than 2,000 votes.

In 1997 Kildare North and Kildare South came into being and Stagg took the third seat in the three seater and he won the second seat in 2002 - as he would in 2007 and 2011.

In 2016 he lost his seat as Catherine Murphy put in a barnstorming performance for the Social Democrats, taking more than one in five of all first preferences. Stagg finished in sixth place as James Lawless, Frank O’Rourke and Bernard Durkan were elected without reaching the quota.

Jack Wall, who had held the seat for Labour in Kildare South since1997, retired before the 2016 poll.

Stagg ran again last time out, in 2020. But his share of the vote fell by three percentage points to 5.4% and he finished behind Vincent P Martin (Green Party) and Anthony Lawlor (FG), with more candidates ahead of him than behind him.

He will be remembered as a wily operator who managed to ensure that few genuine alternative Labour Party candidates emerged to oppose him and he seldom, if ever, had a running mate when seeking a Dáil seat. Leixlip-based Catherine Murphy, herself an impressive vote winner, was seen by many as a strong left wing politician but she left Labour in 2003.

Rakish and thin, he frequently wore a wide brimmed Fedora-type hat and his bookish appearance belied an often strident disposition. He had the reputation of being a hardworking constituency TD.

He was an impressive orator with a quick wit, he was not shy of controversy and was unafraid of the consequences when he spoke.

He once said he would have no objection to people working while claiming unemployment payments because these payments were so paltry in the 1980s.

He was a vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency when the dump at Kerdiffstown  first began to to stink and then went on fire over a decade ago.

“Where once there was a hole in the ground, there is now a veritable mountain of rotting, stinking, waste. It is one of the highest points in County Kildare. There is no protection for ground or surface water from the leachate running off the dump and it should be noted that the  River Morrell, a tributary of the Liffey and a source of Dublin and Kildare water supply, runs within 100 metres of the site,” he said in the Dáil.

In 1994 he was at the centre of controversy when it emerged that  gardai had  previously found him  in a part of Phoenix Park frequented by male prostitutes,

There was criticism of the garda leak to the media. No charges were brought against him and no crime was committed.

He was also a champion of decent housing for everyone and railed against the “appalling housing conditions which the Travelling community must endure.”

Referring to “official and unofficial sites in Kildare” in 1999, he said Irish families are still forced to rear their children without basic water, sanitary and refuse facilities.

“I met one woman who shares her caravan with six teenage daughters in Leixlip. She has no running water or refuse service. The halting site is only a stone’s throw from the Intel plant in Leixlip, one of the most impressive examples of Ireland's new found economic confidence and technological skills,” he said.

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He had an impish sense of humour too, telling this reporter that party colleague and former Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn was known as Ho Chi Quinn in his younger days,  a play on the pronunciation of Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh’s name.

By profession he was a medical technologist who worked in Trinity College and he lived at Lodge Park, Straffan,  originally built as a Kildare County Council estate for most of his life.