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Martin Cullen (born November 1954 ) is a senior Irish Fianna Fáil politician. He has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for Waterford since 1987 and has been Minister For Transport since 2004. Cullen was previously a member of Seanad Éireann (1989-1992) and has also served as Minister for the Environment, Heritage & Local Government (2002-2004). Cullen was born in Waterford and was educated at Waterpark College and at Regional Technical College, Waterford . He was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Progressive Democrats TD in 1987 . During his first period as a TD he served as Progressive Democrats spokesperson on Tourism, Transport & Communications (1987-1988) and Industry & Commerce (1988-1989). Cullen lost his seat at the General Election in 1989 but was elected to Seanad Éireann instead serving there until his re-election to the Dáil in 1992 . The following year he became Party spokesperson on Enterprise & Employment. During the 27th Dáil he left the Progressive Democrats and joined Fianna Fáil . In 1997 a Fianna Fáil - Progressive Democrats coalition came to power and Cullen became Minister of State at the Department of Finance. In 2002 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister For The Environment, Heritage & Local Government . As minister responsible for elections, his department was responsible for the voting system used. When Electronic Voting was proposed for the 2004 local and European elections, he stood by the proposed system despite opposition from within the Dáil and from some members of the public. When the system was scrapped his reputation was damaged. Arguably more significantly in the long term, he was also the Minister responsible for the Planning and Development(Amendment) Act, 2002. This act amended Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to remove the requirement for builders to provide social housing on 20% of their developments. Instead, Cullen's plan allowed Builders to subvert this requirement by paying the local council instead and thus ensured that a central motivation of the 2000 Act, namely to avoid run down council estates by integrating public and private housing, was overthrown. As of March 2006 the vast majority of builders have successfully avoided integrating social housing in their new developments and instead opted for making a payment to the local council. In 2004 he was appointed Minister For Transport . Since that appointment he has become embroiled in even more controversy. Two independent reports have cleared him of any wrong-doing in the awarding of lucrative Public Relations contracts to Monica Leech , with whom it has been hinted that he had a romantic involvement. CABINET CAREER EXTERNAL LINKS |
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