- Timmy Conway
Timothy "Timmy" Conway' (born
27 October 1942 )cite web |url=http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=1&HouseNum=16&MemberID=1223&ConstID=207 |title=Mr. Timothy Conway |work=Oireachtas Members Database |accessdate=2008-02-22] is a former Irish politician fromNaas inCounty Kildare . An accountant and long-serving local councillor, he served for six years as a senator in the 1980s and later contested two general elections. In the course of his political career, he switched party twice, moving from the Labour Party to theProgressive Democrats toFine Gael .Political career
Conway joined the Labour Party as a trainee accountant in the 1970s, was later elected as a member of
Kildare County Council . He was Labour's director of elections in the Kildare constituency at the 1981 general election, after which he wasnominated by the Taoiseach ,Garret FitzGerald , as a member of the15th Seanad Éireann . The appointment was explained by the Labour Party's secretary, Seamus Scally, as an organisational one: Conway would be responsible for organising and improving the finances of the party in theLeinster area. [cite news |url=http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/archive/1981/0820/Pg009.html |title=Senate choice widens rift |author=Denis Coghlan |date=20 August 1981 |work=The Irish Times |accessdate=2008-02-07 |page=1&9]The following year he was elected to the
16th Seanad , topping the poll on theIndustrial and Commercial Panel . [cite news |url=http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/archive/1982/0423/Pg006.html |title=Senate elections: Carroll loses as Barnes takes Labour panel seat |date=23 April 1982 |work=The Irish Times |accessdate=2008-02-07 |page=6] He was re-elected in 1983 to the17th Seanad , this time coming second in the first-preference votes behindFianna Fáil 's Eoin Ryan. [cite news |url=http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/archive/1983/0203/Pg006.html |title=Senate results |date=3 February 1983 |work=The Irish Times |accessdate=2008-02-07 |page=6]He left the Labour party in 1986 to become a founder member of the new
Progressive Democrats party (PDs), and did not contest the 1987 elections to the18th Seanad (the PDs policy at the time called for the abolition of the Seanad). At the 1989 general election, he stood unsuccessfully as a PD candidate in the Kildare constituency, and he was unsuccessful again when he stood in the new Kildare North constituency at the 1997 general election.cite web |url=http://electionsireland.org/candidate.cfm?ID=463 |title=Timmy Conway's electoral history |work=ElectionsIreland.org |accessdate=2008-02-22]Conway remained a member of Kildare County Council and of
Naas Town Coucil , where he initiated the town's twinning with the American city ofOmaha, Nebraska . He was one of three of the town's nine councillors whose council-funded to Omaha was described by another councillor as a "gravy train". [cite web |url=http://archives.tcm.ie/kildarenationalist/2002/03/04/story1038.asp |title=Twinning is a waste of money |date=4 March 2002 |work=Kildare Nationalist |accessdate=2008-02-22] He was twice chairman of the county council, and served as Mayor of Naas from 2002 to 2003. However, in June 2003 he left the Progresuve Democrats to joinFine Gael , [cite news |url=http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0616/finegael.html |title=Naas Mayor leaves PDs for Fine Gael |date=16 June 2003 |work=RTÉ News website |accessdate=2008-02-22] and in the 2004 local elections he lost his seats on both the Town council [cite web |url=http://archives.tcm.ie/kildarenationalist/2004/06/17/story17739.asp |title=“Bloodbath” in Naas as five cllrs replaced |date=17 June 2004 |work=Kildare Nationalist |accessdate=2008-02-22] and the County Council. [cite web |url=http://archives.tcm.ie/kildarenationalist/2004/06/17/story17752.asp |title=Prominent cllrs lose seats in ‘bloodbath’ |date=17 June 2004 |work=Kildare Nationalist |accessdate=2008-02-22]References
External links
* [http://kildare.ie/TimmyConway/index.asp Timmy Conway's website]
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