Background
Hannigan was born in Drogheda, County Louth.
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Dominic Hannigan
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He was educated at University College Dublin with a degree in Civil Engineering, at the City University London with a Masters in Transport and at the University of London with a Masters in Finance.
Career
He was elected as a Teachta Dála (Territorial Decoration) for the Meath East constituency at the 2011 general election, having previously served in Seanad Éireann from 2007 to 2011. He emigrated from Ireland in the 1980s to look for work. Hannigan returned to Ireland and worked as a Civil engineer
Hannigan is openly gay.
Early career (2004-2007)
Hannigan subsequently joined the Labour Party in October 2004, and first stood for Dáil Éireann at the 2005 Meath by-election, which saw the Labour vote increase by over 3,000 first preference votes since the 2002 general election. His next election was the 2007 general election, again missing out on the third seat, this time to Thomas Byrne.
Seanad Éireann (2007-2011)
As part of an election pact between Labour and Sinn Féin for the 2007 Seanad election, Hannigan was elected on the first count, to the Industrial and Commercial Panel of Seanad Éireann. In Seanad Éireann he was the Labour Party Whip and spokesperson on Commuter Issues, Environment and Local Government, Foreign Affairs and Defence.
He subsequently became the Chairman of Eamon Gilmore"s leadership campaign to become leader.
In September 2007, he submitted proposals to the Department of Environment and Local Government for town councils for Ashbourne and the Meath coastal area and called for the abolition of county managers. In 2011, he said that population growth during the Celtic Tiger years was more dramatic in Meath than elsewhere in Ireland and that this was having a profound effect on the county"s education system. He spoke in favour of a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed Slane bypass in February 2011.
Dáil Éireann (2011-2016)
At the 2011 general election, Hannigan topped the poll in Meath East.
In doing so Hannigan became one of the first two openly gay people to be elected to Dáil Éireann, a distinction he shares with Dublin North-West"s John Lyons. lieutenant is believed that at least one gay Territorial Decoration preceded them but none had made their sexual orientation publicly known.
The Meath Chronicle compared Hannigan to Speedy Gonzales as he "flitted at high speed from one spot to the next" on the campaign trail. Hannigan was elected Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in June 2011.
In January 2012, Hannigan was elected Chairman of the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs, following which he stepped down as Chairman of the Good Friday Agreement Committee.
In a television interview broadcast in April 2012, he confirmed that the 99.8% state owned bank, Allied Irish Banks, had paid one and a half billion Euro to unsecured bank bondholders for which neither the bank nor the Irish state had no legal liability. He lost his seat at the 2016 general election.
Politics
Hannigan entered electoral politics when he was elected as an independent councillor to Meath County Council for the Slane electoral area at the 2004 local elections, serving as chairperson of the council"s Planning and Economic Development Committee. He was "followed by a large posse of journalists and camera crews" when party leader Eamon Gilmore joined him during the campaign.
Membership
He was one of the first members of the Oireachtas to support the candidacy of Eamon Gilmore following the resignation of Pat Rabbitte as leader of the Labour Party on 23 August 2007.
