The Andrews family have a long connection with Fianna Fáil. Before entering political life, Andrews was a secondary school teacher. He was the Director-General of the Dublin-based Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), a partly Irish State-funded EU think tank, since 2017. He was CEO of GOAL from 2012 to 2016, during which the agency grew from a turnover of €60m to more than €150m. He announced his resignation to allow for ‘a fresh start in terms of leadership’ in October 2016 in the wake of a fraud in the charity that was discovered in March 2016.[3]
He is married and has two sons and a daughter. His brother, David McSavage is a comedian, and he is a first cousin of former RTÉ television and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy.
On 31 January 2011, in the run up to the general election, Andrews was named Health spokesman by the party leader, Micheál Martin.[5] He lost his seat at the general election.[6] For his eight years' service as a TD, Andrews was entitled to a lump sum of €110,312, a partial TD's pension between the ages of 45 and 49 (which he has not claimed), and beginning at age 50 a full pension of approximately €16,000 per year. He is entitled to a ministerial pension of approximately €9,000 from the age of 65.[7]
In June 2006, Andrews led a group of Fianna Fáil backbenchers in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a backbench committee to influence government policy. At the 2007 general election, Andrews retained his seat in Dún Laoghaire with 8,587 votes.[6]
Minister of State for Children
Andrews was appointed Minister of State for Children in May 2008. As Minister, he framed the Government response to the Ryan Report on Institutional Abuse. This included an Implementation Plan that delivered an additional 200 social workers for the HSE Child and Family Services.[10] In April 2009, Andrews introduced the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Scheme,[11] which provided, for the first time, free universal access to pre-school education. The scheme benefited 65,000 children in 2013.[12]
After the release of the Murphy Report into child abuse in the Dublin diocese in November 2009, Andrews, speaking at a conference in Dublin Castle, said it would be "amazing" if there were no consequences for people who were the subject of adverse findings in the report. Asked about the position of the Bishop of Limerick, Donal Murray, the Minister said, "I think it's everybody's view that if adverse findings are made against an individual in a commission of inquiry then it would be amazing that there be no consequences for them.".[13] Bishop Murray subsequently apologised to survivors and resigned from office.[14]
In December 2009, Andrews oversaw the introduction of government policy to lower the legal age of consent to 16. Citing a Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution report which recommended the legal age be reduced to 16 from the current 17. Andrews expressed the view the existing laws were "inappropriate" and out of touch with the modern reality of sexual relations between young people, and promised to publish legislation to change the Age of Consent to 16. He noted that Ireland and Malta were "the only countries in Europe with an age of consent of 17".[15] However, the law was not passed by the Oireachtas before the 2011 Irish general election in which Fianna Fáil ceded power to a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.
Children's Referendum
In September 2012, he was appointed Fianna Fáil Director of Elections for the Children's referendum.[16]
Andrews is a founder member of the European Parliament’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Alliance.[20] Andrews also founded the Brussels-Belfast Forum with members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.[citation needed]
He was appointed EU Chief Observer for the 2023 Nigerian Federal and State elections by High Representative Vice President Josep Borrell.[21] A report on the election was subsequently produced highlighting that the election was marred by a lack of transparency, public mistrust in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), violence, and vote buying, stressing the need for comprehensive electoral reforms.[22]
In November 2012, Andrews was appointed chief executive of the Irish aid charity GOAL, replacing the retiring founder John O'Shea.[23] In October 2016, Andrews resigned from GOAL after it was revealed that other senior executives of Goal had been involved in "large-scale fraud", though there was no suggestion that he himself was involved in the scandal. In October 2017, the new CEO of GOAL announced a deficit of €31.6 million due to the fraud but said that it would survive after "one of the most challenging years" in its 40-year history.[24]
In March 2017, Andrews was appointed as Director-General of the Irish State-supported EU think tank and advocacy body, the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), with the Chairperson of the IIEA, former Leader of the Labour Party, Ruairi Quinn, describing Andrews as having the "political and administrative skills" of value to the IIEA.[25]
^ abcd"BARRY ANDREWS: BA '88, MA '90 BL"(PDF). UCD Connections. 2006. p. 74. Archived(PDF) from the original on 13 December 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2018. After graduation, Barry was a school teacher for seven years in Ballyfermot Senior College, Sutton Park School and Bruce College.
^"Barry Andrews". Oireachtas Members Database. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
^"PROFILE: BARRY ANDREWS". The Irish Phoenix Review. 5 April 2018. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018. IF Fianna Fáil has a royal family it is the extended Andrews clan and former minister Barry Andrews was once seen as its crown prince.
^Shane Phelan (26 October 2017). "Aid charity Goal has €31m deficit after fraud probe". Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 7 November 2018. Goal's annual report for 2016, published yesterday, revealed expenditure was €194.6m, while its income was just €162.97m after "one of the most challenging years" in its 40-year history. The charity's new general manager Celine Fitzgerald told the Irish Independent the scale of the deficit was "unusual".
