Jack Chambers profile: From baby of the Dáil to Fianna Fáil deputy ...
Jack Chambers. Photo: Steve Humphreys
Jack Chambers has risen through the ranks to become at 33 the first deputy leader of Fianna Fáil since the resignation of Dara Calleary in 2020.
Just eight years ago, he was baby of the Dáil – the youngest TD at age 25 following his first general election success in Dublin West.
Born in Galway in 1990, his family moved to Dublin when he was a child and he grew up in the Castleknock area. His father Frank and mother Barbara are both natives of Mayo – Frank works as a consultant at the Mater Hospital.
Educated at Belvedere College, he went on to study at Trinity College Dublin where he earned a degree in law and politics. Though he interrupted his education to focus on his political career, Mr Chambers later graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons and has been a qualified medical doctor since 2020.
Mr Chambers’ father was a Fianna Fáil party activist and a close friend and political ally of the late Brian Lenihan. Jack Chambers reopened the constituency office closed in Dublin 15 following Mr Lenihan’s death in 2011 and in the 2014 local elections, topped the poll in the Castleknock LEA to become a councillor aged just 23.
He was deputy mayor of Fingal from 2015 until he was elected to the Dáil and resigned his council seat. In 2018, Mr Chambers was one of a number of Fianna Fáil TDs to call for a No vote in the abortion referendum on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
In an interview in 2022, he said his position on abortion had “evolved” and he now supported women being able to get terminations up to 12 weeks of pregnancy in all circumstances.
Since being re-elected to the Dáil in 2020, Mr Chambers has held a number of minister of state roles. He was junior minister in the Finance Department for just two weeks before moving up to become Government Chief Whip until 2022 – he was also a Minister of State for Sport and the Gaeltacht and in the Department of Defence.
Following Leo Varadkar’s 2022 reshuffle, he was moved to become Minister of State at both the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment.
In January of this year, Mr Chambers came out as gay. In a post on Instagram, he said: “As I look forward to 2024 I am sharing with you something a little different but it’s something I wanted to do for a while.
“As a politician it can sometimes be difficult to speak about my own personal life and that can lead to things drifting.
“However, It’s important for me to be true to myself firstly – and to you all in my public service role. I am starting 2024 by telling you all that I am proud to say that I am gay.”
