{"id":471380,"date":"2026-05-28T14:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471380\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T14:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T14:06:08","slug":"fianna-fails-catherine-ardagh-promoted-in-wake-of-michael-healy-rae-departure-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/471380\/","title":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s Catherine Ardagh promoted in wake of Michael Healy-Rae departure \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Fianna F\u00e1il TD for Dublin South-Central Catherine Ardagh has been promoted to serve as a Minister of State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ardagh has been assigned to the Department of Justice as part of a mini-reshuffle of the junior ministerial ranks which follows the the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/04\/15\/healy-rae-resignation-like-putting-a-star-corner-forward-in-corner-back\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/04\/15\/healy-rae-resignation-like-putting-a-star-corner-forward-in-corner-back\/\">resignation<\/a> of Independent TD <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/michael-healy-rae\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/michael-healy-rae\/\">Michael Healy-Rae<\/a> last month in response to the handling of fuel protests. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Healy-Rae\u2019s former portfolio at the Department of Agriculture, where he had with special responsibility for forestry, farm safety and horticulture, will be taken over by Fianna F\u00e1il TD for Limerick County Niall Collins. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ardagh, a solicitor, will have responsibility for international law, law reform and youth justice at the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Michael Healy-Rae leaving Leinster House after resigning from Government in April. Photograph: Enda O'Dowd\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4KR3R6QLAZEUXFHYFUVT76FLOI.JPG\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Michael Healy-Rae leaving Leinster House after resigning from Government in April. Photograph: Enda O&#8217;Dowd <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI am delighted to be appointed to this role and it will be a privilege to serve in this portfolio,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI look forward to applying both my legal expertise and the understanding I have gained from working closely with people across my constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ardagh was first elected to the D\u00e1il in the 2024 general election, having served in the Seanad for the previous eight years. She previously represented the Crumlin\/Kimmage area on Dublin City Council. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her father, the late Se\u00e1n Ardagh, was a Fianna F\u00e1il TD for Dublin South-Central between 1997 and 2011. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/oireachtas\/2026\/04\/14\/government-survives-confidence-vote-after-surprise-michael-healy-rae-resignation\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/oireachtas\/2026\/04\/14\/government-survives-confidence-vote-after-surprise-michael-healy-rae-resignation\/\">Healy-Rae announced his resignation<\/a> during a motion of confidence debate in the D\u00e1il last month in the wake of fuel protests that brought major disruption to the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said he was tendering his resignation and \u201cvoting no confidence in the leader of the country\u201d because \u201cI believe this Government has let the people of Ireland down\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said he had listened to protesters and considered himself a \u201cgauge of the people of rural Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/03\/14\/michael-healy-rae-what-does-irelands-wealthiest-td-own-and-what-is-it-worth\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Healy-Rae: What does \u2018Ireland\u2019s wealthiest TD\u2019 own and what is it worth?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il TD for Dublin South-Central Catherine Ardagh has been promoted to serve as a Minister of State.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,61,60,24878,43],"class_list":["post-471380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-healy-rae","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}