Desmond, Eileen (née Harrington) (1932–2005), politician and cabinet minister, was born 29 December 1932 at Kilcolman, Ballinspittle parish, near Old Head, Co. Cork, daughter of Michael Harrington, postman and part-time fisherman, and his wife Ellen. The family suffered hardship after her father went blind when Eileen was aged eleven. Educated at the Convent of Mercy school, Kinsale, she was one of only two girls in her class to sit her leaving certificate. She then worked as a civil servant in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. She married (1955) Daniel Desmond (qv), Labour TD for Cork South (1948–61) and Mid Cork (1961–4); they had two daughters, whom in later life were her closest friends. For most of her adult life she lived in Carrigaline, Co. Cork. Desmond actively assisted her husband in his constituency work, thus laying the foundation of her own later political career; her work for her constituents underlay her reputation as a champion of the poor and underprivileged, and her ability to survive politically despite taking some unpopular positions.
Although recovering from tuberculosis, Desmond was elected Labour TD for Mid Cork (1965–9) at a by-election on 10 March 1965, caused by the death the previous December of her husband; she also succeeded him on Cork county council (1965–79). She was only the second female Labour TD, and one of the youngest members of the 17th Dáil Éireann. Her victory induced the Fianna Fáil taoiseach, Seán Lemass (qv), to dissolve the dáil before she could assume her seat. Desmond was returned at the subsequent general election, and became party spokesperson for education. She defended party proposals for state control of the health and education systems (then dominated by the catholic church), declaring at the January 1969 party conference that 'as a catholic mother' she found nothing objectionable in these proposals.
Desmond's defeat in the 1969 general election was a result of boundary changes, which moved her supporters in the Bandon and Kinsale areas out of the Mid Cork constituency, combined with vote-splitting caused by the Labour party leadership's insistence that two candidates should run in every constituency. Although Labour polled enough first preferences in Mid Cork to elect a TD, Desmond received fewer than 60 per cent of the transfers of the second candidate, Neil Lehane, and lost her seat by a few hundred votes. She also attributed her defeat to the party's having moved too far to the left. Desmond was elected to Seanad Éireann for the industrial and commercial panel (1969–73); her mother helped her to supplement her income by running a shop in Carrigaline.
After unsuccessfully contesting a 1972 by-election, at the 1973 general election Desmond was returned to the dáil for Mid Cork (1973–81). After re-election in 1977, she supported Frank Cluskey (qv) for party leader in succession to Brendan Corish (qv) – her husband had been strongly linked to the Larkinite and Workers' Union of Ireland tradition within the labour movement which shaped Cluskey – and became party spokesperson for justice. Desmond was highly respected within the parliamentary Labour party; despite her quiet, reflective air, her views were generally regarded as shrewd and conviction-based. She strongly supported the efforts of Josie Airey (qv) to secure legal aid for her efforts to obtain a civil separation from her abusive husband.
Desmond was elected MEP for the Munster constituency (1979–81), polling 53,614 votes and coming second on the first count behind the independent farmer candidate, T. J. Maher (qv); she also served on the Council of Europe. At Cluskey's request, in the 1981 dáil election she successfully contested the new constituency of Cork South Central (1981–7). She resigned from the European parliament on her appointment as minister for health and social welfare (1981–2) in the first Fine Gael–Labour coalition government of Garret FitzGerald (qv). She was the third woman in the history of the state to hold cabinet office (after Countess Markievicz (qv) and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn), and her portfolio was the most senior held by a woman to that date.
Desmond's support for Michael O'Leary (1936–2006) – whom she had opposed in 1977 – in the party leadership contest after Cluskey's defeat in the 1981 general election, played a significant role in O'Leary's victory. Journalist Vincent Browne suggested that Desmond, who was widely respected within the party, would have had a good chance of securing the leadership as a compromise candidate, had she been interested. Her party colleague Barry Desmond endorsed this view, but stated that Eileen Desmond's fragile health ruled out any leadership candidacy. Health problems, particularly high blood pressure, hindered Desmond's ministerial activities. Almost immediately after her appointment she suffered a life-threatening nosebleed, and at one point had to be brought into the dáil chamber on a stretcher to sustain the government's narrow majority in a division. As minister, Desmond secured a government commitment to a 25 per cent increase in social welfare benefits, though this was as much a response to high inflation as a product of her negotiating skills in cabinet (the Department of Finance had initially proposed a 22 per cent increase). In the event, the increases were not implemented; in order to fund them, the government's proposed budget included a provision to extend valued added tax (VAT) to children's shoes and clothing. This led some of the independent TDs who were supporting the government to vote against the budget, which was duly defeated on 27 January 1982, leading to the dissolution of the 22nd dáil. Desmond was re-elected at the two 1982 elections (February and November), but was not included in FitzGerald's second government (December 1982–1987).
Although she was a practising catholic, Desmond was a consistent supporter of the 'liberal agenda' in socio-sexual matters, defying significant opposition in her semi-rural constituency. She supported the 1974 proposal to legalise contraception brought in by the national coalition government but defeated on a free vote. In 1979 she was severely critical of the legislation giving limited access to contraception introduced by Charles Haughey (1925–2006) as minister for health; describing the legislation as hypocritical, she argued that women should make their own decisions on such matters, and contended that the Irish people and 'those who have conditioned our consciences' showed greater moral concern on sexual matters than in addressing poverty. She was the only woman among the eleven TDs who in 1983 voted against putting the pro-life constitutional amendment to a referendum; in internal party discussions she maintained that the divorce ban had done significant damage over the years, and 'under no circumstances will I support another constitutional ban on an issue that affects the lives and health of women' (Irish Examiner, 11 January 2005).
In 1983 Desmond was suggested as a possible presidential candidate by some Labour party members; this was not pursued, in the belief that a unilateral Labour campaign might have strained the coalition with Fine Gael. She was a Labour party representative at the New Ireland Forum (1983–4); a representative of Dáil Éireann at the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (1984); and an unsuccessful candidate in the Munster constituency at the 1984 European elections. Desmond retired from politics at the 1987 general election for health reasons, though after her health improved she stood unsuccessfully for Labour in Munster at the 1989 European elections. She died suddenly on 6 January 2005 in Cork University Hospital. Numerous public figures, including party colleagues and opponents, paid tribute to her conviction politics and concern for the less well-off. Her daughter Paula was a long-serving member of Cork county council, representing Carrigaline, and unsuccessfully stood for the European parliament in 1999.