A native of Patrickswell in Co Limerick, Niall Collins is a Fianna Fáil TD and a member of the well known Collins political dynasty.
His grandfather James Collins represented Limerick in the Dáil from 1948-1967; his uncle Gerry Collins is a former MEP and TD while another uncle, Michael Collins, was a Limerick TD from 1997-2007.
Having previously served as a county councillor for the Bruff local electoral area, Niall Collins was first elected to the Dáil in 2007 and received one of the highest newcomer first preference votes in the country.
The 50-year-old married father has previously acted as Fianna Fáil’s spokesman on environment, community and local government and was the party’s spokesman on justice and the environment, and was a minister of state for skills and further education.
In 2019, he lost his front-bench role as FF’s jobs spokesman after it emerged he voted six times for party colleague Timmy Dooley in the Dáil, while Dooley was absent from the chamber at the time, in what became known as “votegate”, which also exposed casual Dáil voting practices by a number of politicians.
Collins is married to Dr Éimear O’Connor and they have two children.