Tom Leonard (Irish politician)

Tom Leonard
Teachta Dála
In office November 1983 – February 1987
Constituency	Dublin Central
In office June 1977 – June 1981
Constituency	Dublin Cabra
Personal details
Born	(1924-05-30)30 May 1924 Dublin, Ireland
Died	5 March 2004(2004-03-05) (aged 79) Dublin, Ireland
Political party	Fianna Fáil

Tom Leonard (on the podium, left) Christmas 1949, auctioning holly wreaths in the Dublin Fruit and Vegetable Markets.

Thomas Leonard (30 May 1924 – 5 March 2004) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician.

Biography

Leonard was born in Dublin, and worked much of his life in a family business in the Dublin Corporation Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets. The business had been started two generations earlier by his grandmother, continued by his father and ultimately passed to Leonard and his two brothers. While in business, Leonard was also a Dublin City Councillor.

He was a Fianna Fáil candidate at the 1969 and 1973 general elections. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a TD for Dublin Cabra at the 1977 general election.

At the end of his first term in office, Leonard's constituency was abolished and became part of the new Dublin Central constituency. He stood there at the 1981 general election, but lost his seat; he was also an unsuccessful candidate there at the February 1982 and November 1982 general elections. Leonard when he won the November 1983 by-election for Dublin Central following the death of George Colley.

During this tenure, he was appointed by the party leader and former Taoiseach Charles Haughey to the New Ireland Forum.

Leonard was unsuccessful at the 1985 Dublin Corporation election. Unusually for a sitting TD, he was not selected by Fianna Fáil to contest the 1987 general election, losing out to John Stafford and Dermot Fitzpatrick. Leonard graciously accepted the party decision which ended his Dáil career and went back to being a city councillor.

He continued in the markets until his retirement, and died in Blanchardstown, Dublin in 2004.