Trevor Sargent has been a member of the Green Party/Comhaontas Glas since 1982 and a T.D. in the Dublin North constituency since 1992. He was elected first Leader of the Green Party in October 2001 and held the position until his resignation following the party's entry into Government in June 2007.
A committed environmentalist since the early 1980's, he realised that many pressing social issues were also linked to environmental problems at local, national and international level. Trevor Sargent eventually found a vehicle for his environmental and political philosophy by joining the Ecology Party (as the Green Party was then called) through the Cork Green Movement, while teaching in Dunmanway, West Cork in 1982.
Trevor first ran for office in 1985 and then in the European elections of 1989, won 8.3% of the Dublin vote. Two years later, in June 1991, he was elected to Fingal County Council and a year later, in November 1992, to Dáil Éireann. He topped the poll in 2002 with nearly 17% of first preference votes in the market gardening constituency of Dublin North and was comfortably re-elected in May 2007, after which he was appointed Minister of State for Food and Horticulture.
Trevor is co-founder and currently a board member of Sonairte, the Irish National Ecology Centre, near Julianstown, County Meath which is an Agricultural Training and Visitor centre with a 2.2 acre walled organic garden. He is also a member of Amnesty International, the Dublin Food Co-op, the Irish Organic Farmers' and Growers' Association, Organic Trust and a former member of Macra na Feirme.
A former teacher and fluent Irish speaker, he enjoys a pint and relaxes by reading and walking. His favourite form of relaxation though is tending to his prolific organic garden at home in Balbriggan, North County Dublin, an area known locally as Fingal.
