A native of Clarecastle, Mr Carey was first elected as a local councillor for Clare County Council in 1974.<\/p>\n
From there he went on to serve Clare as a TD from 1982 to 2002, after acting as a Senator for the Labour Panel from 1981 to 1982.<\/p>\n
Mr Carey was further appointed as Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach with responsibility for western development and rural renewal and Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht with responsibility for the Gaeltacht in 1995 until 1997.<\/p>\n
T\u00e1naiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris has lead tributes as the news of Mr Carey\u2019s overnight passing circulates.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am extremely saddened to learn of the passing of the late Donal Carey,\u201d the T\u00e1naiste said. \u201cDonal was deeply committed to public service, dedicating well over 20 years of his life to the people of Clare, as a councillor, TD, Senator and Minister of State.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was someone who brought a real sense of kindness, humour and wisdom to the job, always willing to support younger colleagues who were starting out on their political journeys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout doubt, one of Donal\u2019s overriding passions was serving the communities and people of county Clare. Communities that will always Donal for ensuring their voices were heard in Dail and Seanad Eireann.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonal, of course, made a huge impact within our Fine Gael party, building so many friendships along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn behalf of Fine Gael, I extend my heartfelt condolences to all the Carey family at this very difficult time, including, Joe, one of Donal\u2019s sons who also served with distinction in D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann, and his daughter Leonora who ran in the last general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonal\u2019s legacy of service and his contribution to Irish public life and to our Fine Gael family will always be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Carey\u2019s son, Joe Carey was a Fine Gael TD for Clare from 2007 to 2024 and his daughter, Leonora Carey, also ran for Fine Gael in the 2024 General Election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A native of Clarecastle, Mr Carey was first elected as a local councillor for Clare County Council in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,20379,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-201144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-molly-cantwell","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115615912677307308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}