Education
Mathews attended Gonzaga College and went on to study Commerce at University College Dublin.
Mathews attended Gonzaga College and went on to study Commerce at University College Dublin.
He was elected as a Teachta Dála (Territorial Decoration) for the Dublin South constituency at the 2011 general election. He has been a panelist on Tonight with Vincent Browne during the Irish financial crisis. Mathews joined the Progressive Democrats on its foundation but left shortly afterwards.
He is a qualified Chartered Accountant, and has worked for Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) and Interstate Commerce Commission Bank.
Before entering politics, he was a consultant on banking and finance, and a media commentator. Despite a diagnosis of oesophageal cancer, Mathews said he would still contest the 2016 general election.
He lost his seat at the 2016 general election.
He sits as an independent Territorial Decoration, having lost the Fine Gael parliamentary party whip in July 2013. He left the Fine Gael party in October 2013. On 14 March 2012, the Government was defeated in a vote taken at a meeting of the Oireachtas finance committee after numerous Fine Gael TDs went missing.
Mathews was expelled from the Fine Gael parliamentary party on 2 July 2013 when he defied the party whip by voting against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013. On 13 September 2013, he and six other expellees formed the Reform Alliance, described as a "loose alliance" rather than a political party. On 3 October 2013, he resigned from the Fine Gael party.