Eoghan Murphy

Eoghan Murphy (born 23 April 1982) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician, who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 2011 to 2021, representing the Dublin Bay South constituency. He served as Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government from 2017 to 2020 and as Minister of State for Financial Services from 2016 to 2017. In 2021, he served as Head of Mission on election observation missions to Armenia, Uzbekistan, Italy and Kazakhstan on behalf of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation (OSCE).

Born in Dublin, Murphy attended primary school at Star of the Sea Sandymount and secondary school at St Michael's College. He went on to study at University College Dublin (BA, English & Philosophy), and King's College London (MA, International Relations). In 2013, he was awarded a Marshall Memorial Fellowship.

His father Henry is a retired senior counsel and author. His brothers Cillian (the actor known as Killian Scott) and Colin, a playwright and journalist, have forged successful careers in the arts.

In 2021, he revealed that an ex-girlfriend received verbal abuse during his term as a government minister.

Prior to entering politics, Murphy worked in international arms control, specifically in the area of nuclear weapons disarmament. He has worked for the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva, Switzerland, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Dublin, and before his election to Dublin City Council, he was working as a speechwriter for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna, Austria. In a 2015 Dáil debate on Irish neutrality, Murphy supported ending the triple lock requirement for Irish military deployment to have United Nations Security Council support, on the ground that it makes Ireland subject to Russia's veto power.

Murphy stood in his first election in 2009 and topped the poll when he was elected to Dublin City Council at the 2009 local elections for the local electoral area of Pembroke–Rathmines. He was 27 at the time.

At the 2011 general election, he was elected to Dáil Éireann for the Dublin South-East constituency, vacating his seat on the council. In the 31st Dáil, he sat on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), then regarded as the foremost Oireachtas Committee due to its special powers, and subsequently served on the Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, established to examine the causes of Ireland's property-driven banking collapse which resulted in a national bailout. When that inquiry almost collapsed Murphy, together with Senator Susan O'Keeffe, was asked by their colleagues to rescue the final report, which was published in January 2016.

In his first term he also led the Oireachtas delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, serving as a short-term observer to the Russian presidential election in 2012, and as Special Co-Ordinator for the Bulgarian parliamentary elections in 2013.