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Ciarán Cannon Politician

Ciarán Cannon (born 19 September 1965) is an Irish politician and a Fine Gael Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway East constituency since the 2011 general election. He previously served as Minister of State for Training and Skills from March 2011 to July 2014. He is a former leader of the Progressive Democrats (PD) party.Before entering politics he was CEO (2002–06) and secretary (2000–02) of IHCPT – The Irish Pilgrimage Trust. In 2002 he was honoured as one of the Galway People of the Year.He was elected to Galway County Council in 2004 to represent the Loughrea electoral area with 1,307 first preferences. He was an unsuccessful PD candidate at the 2007 general election for the Galway East constituency. He received 3,321 first preferences in the 2007 poll.He was nominated by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern to the Seanad as a Progressive Democrats member in 2007.Cannon was elected as Leader of the Progressive Democrats on 17 April 2008. Cannon was the first leader of the Progressive Democrats to come from Seanad Éireann. At his first press conference as party leader Cannon stated that he believed "there was passion, commitment, talent and knowledge within the PDs' ranks to stage a big comeback".However, after speculation increased that Noel Grealish, one of the party's two TDs, intended to leave the party, he announced in September 2008 that a party conference would be held on 8 November 2008 at which he would recommend that the party disband. At that conference, the delegates present voted by 201–161 that the party should disband.Cannon announced on 24 March 2009 his decision to resign the leadership of the Progressive Democrats and on the same day he joined Fine Gael.On 10 March 2011, he was appointed as Minister of State for Training and Skills. He was dropped as a Minister of State in a reshuffle in July 2014.