De Rossa's political path a mix of tenacity and realism

Proinsias De Rossa is the epitome of the adage that politics is the art of the possible.

From young republican activist to minister for social welfare in a Fine Gael-led government, his career path has defied convention at every turn.

One of 12 children, he grew up in the 1940s in inner city Dublin and was recruited to the IRA at the age of 16. "It was a bit of an adventure to be part of a secret army going on secret camps and meetings and so on. It was the stuff of storybooks," he said last year.

A formal education at Kevin Street College of Technology was cut short when he was interned in the Curragh Camp. He resigned from the IRA in 1960 but remained in Sinn Fein. When the party split in 1970 over the "armed struggle", he supported Official Sinn Fein, which later became the Workers' Party. He has been one of the Provisional IRA's most outspoken critics ever since.

He was first elected to the Dail in 1982 and went on to become leader of the Workers' Party six years later. But he was one of six of the party's seven Dail deputies - Mr Tomas Mac Giolla being the exception - who left to form Democratic Left in 1992 following a split over democracy and ideology within the WP.

Aged 58 and married with two sons and a daughter, he is a dogged political fighter whose stubbornness was exemplified by his pursuit of Independent Newspapers for libel over an article by Eamon Dunphy in December 1992 which he claimed had attempted to destroy his reputation.

When the first trial was aborted and the second resulted in the jury disagreeing, many associates thought Mr De Rossa would be unwise to have a third go. He did and won damages of £300,000.

Having served in the Cabinet under John Bruton, his turbulent career almost nosedived when he came within 100 votes of losing his Dublin North-West seat in last year's election. But even when defeat looked likely, he had pledged to remain in politics.