At Home and Abroad

Ministerial Visit to Canada: Simon Harris has served as Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science since June 2020. He has also been serving as Minister for Justice since December 2022 to facilitate the maternity leave of Helen McEntee. He represents the Wicklow constituency since 2011. He previously served as Minister for Health from 2016 to 2020 and Minister of State at the Department of Finance from 2014 to 2016. As part of his visit to Vancouver, he signed a MOU with the Government of BC to provide ease of educational exchange opportunities between Ireland and British Columbia. He was educated at St. David's Holy Faith Secondary School, in Greystones, and first became involved in local politics as a fifteen-year-old when he set up the North Wicklow Triple A Alliance to help the families of children with autism spectrum disorders and attention deficit disorder. As a Junior Certificate student, he lobbied politicians to get better facilities to allow children with such disabilities to be integrated into mainstream education. He initially studied Journalism and French, at the Dublin Institute of Technology, but dropped out in first year to pursue politics full-time.