Proinsias De Rossa

Proinsias De Rossa (born 15 May 1940) is an Irish Labour Party politician and former President of the Workers' Party and subsequently leader of Democratic Left, and later, a senior member of the Labour Party. He was Minister for Social Welfare from 1994 to 1997. Since 1999 he has been a member of the European Parliament in the Party of European Socialists (PES) group. Born as Francis Ross in 1940 in Dublin, he was educated at Marlborough Street N... more

Proinsias De Rossa (born 15 May 1940) is an Irish Labour Party politician and former President of the Workers' Party and subsequently leader of Democratic Left, and later, a senior member of the Labour Party. He was Minister for Social Welfare from 1994 to 1997. Since 1999 he has been a member of the European Parliament in the Party of European Socialists (PES) group. Born as Francis Ross in 1940 in Dublin, he was educated at Marlborough Street National School and Dublin Institute of Technology. He was politically active in Sinn Féin and the IRA from an early age, and was interned in Curragh Camp from 1956 until 1959 for his part in the IRA Border Campaign. He worked in his family's fruit and vegetable shop and later was employed as a postman and an encyclopaedia salesman. He took the Official Sinn Féin side in the 1970 split. In 1977 he contested his first general election for the party, which that year was renamed Sinn Féin the Workers Party (in 1982 the name changed again to the... less