Harry McGee

Harry McGee is the current Political Correspondent with The Irish Times. He has previously worked for several publications, including being Political Editor of the Irish Examiner, as well as jobs with the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Press, the Connacht Tribune newspapers, public service broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann and has also edited Magill. He has appeared as a commentator on RTÉ Radio 1, Newstalk and TV3.
McGee is originally from Salthill, County Galway. He studied at University College Galway, earning a BA (1987), HDip (1989) and LLB (1993). He has won the award for Young Journalist of the Year. He left his job as the Political Editor with the Irish Examiner to take up a new job with The Irish Times in January 2008 and was promoted to the post of Political Correspondent for that publication in December 2009.
McGee has appeared as a commentator on the TV3 programme Nightly News with Vincent Browne. He is also said to be a "favourite pundit" of Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1. McGee interviewed Bertie Ahern for the Irish Examiner when he was Taoiseach. During coverage of the 2009 Irish government budget, he appeared on a panel of journalists on Today with Pat Kenny on RTÉ Radio 1. While appearing on Today with Pat Kenny in March 2009, he asked if it was possible to means test child benefit, leading George Lee, according to Sunday Independent columnist Eoghan Harris, to "bl[o]w up and denounced this departure from the party line of direct taxation in his new dogmatic tone which brooks of no contradiction whatsoever". One month earlier, Harris "congratulated" McGee in his column for his "tremendous scoop" on Taoiseach Brian Cowen's 17-minute speech "without notes". After the Irish local elections, 2009, he declared to Karen Coleman on Newstalk that the Irish Green Party had been "eviscerated", "decimated" and "destroyed" by the results. During coverage of the Lisbon Treaty second referendum he appeared as a commentator on The Marian Finucane Show on RTÉ Radio 1. He described the Irish budget, 2010 as maybe "the most austere Budget in the history of the State".
McGee is known for his cycling habits and, whilst a journalist with the Irish Examiner, was once said by the Sunday Independent's John Drennan to have been "most discombobulated" after being "almost flattened" by a vehicle while on his bicycle outside Leinster House. Drennan previously suggested that watching McGee remove his cycling gear was "one of the most entertaining sights in Leinster House".