MRS Maire Geoghegan Quinn has three senior Cabinet posts, three junior ministries and almost 22 years as a TD behind her. Until yesterday she was regarded as having a long political career ahead of her, perhaps ending it as Taoiseach. At the relatively young age of 46, she has an extraordinary amount of political experience and knows little of adult life outside politics.
"Given the length of time I've been in politics, my continuing passion for what Fianna Fail stands for, and the friendships rooted in fun and strengthened in challenge, leaving is infinitely painful," she said yesterday.
Despite her high profile and long Dail service, she never succeeded in making her seat safe. She is said not to like the endless round of constituency clinics, funerals and functions in the sprawling constituency and it has shown in her electoral performance.
Last November a Raidio na Gaeltachta poll indicated that she might again have to fight it out for the last constituency seat. This would have been nothing new to her in 1992 she won the final seat in the five seater Galway West by just 235 votes over her party rival, Mr Frank Fahey.
She has been successful, but she has had disappointments, too. She lost the most senior post she has held - that of Minister for Justice - in November 1994. She was centrally involved in the extraordinarily confused series of events leading to fall of that Albert Reynolds led Fianna Fail Labour government and was deeply traumatised by the experience.
In the 15 months after those events, she wrote and published her first novel, and more recently has become one of the most able critics of the Government as party spokeswoman on health. Through her detailed grasp of the hepatitis C scandal, she has been a constant thorn in the Government's side in recent months.
Her family background was steeped in politics. Her father, Johnny Geoghegan, was a bus conductor who went on to become Fianna Fail deputy for Galway West from 1954 to 1975. Her godfather, Gerald Bartley, was also a Fianna Fail TD and minister.
Mrs Geoghegan Quinn's earliest political memory is of coming to Dublin in her godfather's state car at the age of four. It was a journey and a mode of transport of which she gained considerable personal experience during her 22 years in politics and could reasonably have looked forward to again.
She was born in Carna in Connemara in 1950. She went to school with the Sisters of Mercy in Tourmakeady and trained as a national teacher in Carysfort College before teaching for a period at Scoil Bhride in Ranelagh.
She married John Quinn when she was 23, and the first of their two sons was born a year later. Her father died the following year and she won the nomination to contest the 1975 by election after a tough selection battle against five local councillors. She was 25 when she was elected to the Dail. Within two years, she was appointed parliamentary secretary to Desmond O'Malley at the Department of Industry and Commerce.
In 1979 she backed Charles Haughey for the Fianna Fail leadership against George Colley. She was appointed to Mr Haughey's first Cabinet at 29, becoming the first woman minister since the foundation of the State - Constance Markievicz was a minister in the first Dail but never held office after independence.
She quickly learned about political disappointment when she was dropped from the Cabinet in 1982 on Fianna Fail's return to power after the brief reign of the first Fine Gael Labour coalition of the 1980s. She became a Minister of State and later in the 1980s was supplanted by Ms Mary O'Rourke as the senior female politician within the party.
She was appointed Minister for Affairs and was highly regarded during Ireland's last EU presidency. She became alienated from the Haughey regime, a development which may have owed something to her loss of Cabinet status.
Her alienation was complete after the 1989 coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats, which saw her former party constituency colleague and bitter rival, Mr Bobby Molloy, in Cabinet.
She backed Albert Reynolds in November 1991 in his first failed attempt to wrest the party leadership from Mr Haughey. With Mr Reynolds and Mr Padraig Flynn, she resigned her government post. She hadn't long to wait in the wilderness. Mr Haughey was gone in February 1992, Mr Reynolds was Taoiseach and Mrs Geoghegan Quinn was back in Cabinet as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications.
In the Fianna Fail Labour government that came to power in January 1993, she became Minister for Justice, the first woman appointed to the post.
As Minister for Justice, she received widespread admiration from liberals - and some opposition from within her own party for the no nonsense way in which she steered through the decriminalisation of homosexual acts.
She has since said she had "no views at all" on the issue, but was heavily influenced by a woman whose son was gay who came to see her as part of a deputation urging her to liberalise the law.
After the Fianna Fail Labour government fell, she intended to run for the leadership of Fianna Fail, but decided not to push the issue to a vote in the parliamentary party when it became clear that Bertie Ahern was the clear choice of her colleagues.
While believed since to be still nurturing leadership ambitions, she said last March that Mr Ahern was very popular, young and energetic. He is growing into the job, he is good for the party."
Mrs Geoghegan Quinn is entitled to a ministerial pension of just over £10,000. The size of the additional Dail deputy's pension depends on which of a number of options a retiring politician takes.