According to Google trends, Richard Boyd Barrett’s name was searched quite a bit during February 2011 – a sign perhaps that his electoral breakthrough in the last general election resulted in a number of people asking just who was the political newcomer, writes RTÉ's Ailbhe Conneely.
Raised by adoptive parents in Glenageary, Mr Boyd Barrett attended the private secondary school, St Michael’s College in Dublin, and went on to UCD to study English Literature.
His political antennae were raised when he spent a summer in Israel working with Palestinian refugees.
Roll on a few years and as a member of the Socialist Workers Party, Mr Boyd Barrett contested the 2002 general election, but didn’t win a seat. He also failed to secure a seat on Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council two years later.
As he prepared for the next general election, he was reunited with his birth mother – the actress Sineád Cusack.
Running under the People Before Profit banner in 2007, Richard Boyd Barrett secured more votes from non-socialist voters. However, he lost out on a seat to the Green Party’s Ciarán Cuffe.
He worked in Dún Laoghaire to improve local services, social housing, community amenities, workers’ rights and jobs, and the hard work eventually paid off.
Richard Boyd Barrett contested and won a seat in the 2011 general election.
A year later, he confirmed that he had claimed €12,000 in expenses for travelling to the Dáil from his constituency home 12km away.
While there may have been some eye-rolling from the Government benches when Boyd Barrett took to his feet in recent years on issues such as corporation tax, water charges, property tax, homelessness and housing, he had the potential to engage, most notably when he poignantly described the burial of his daughter Ella, who was born with fatal foetal abnormalities.
His party has signed up to the Right2Change.
The Anti-Austerity Alliance, meanwhile, is saying farewell to its leader Joe Higgins, who is not running in this election.
Therefore the election of a new leader will have to wait until after the General Election.
