Frank O'Rourke (politician)

Frank O'Rourke (born 15 May 1967) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kildare North constituency from 2016 to 2020.^[1]

Frank O'Rourke
Teachta Dála
In office February 2016 – February 2020
Constituency	Kildare North
Personal details
Born	(1967-05-15) 15 May 1967 (age 58) Sligo, Ireland
Political party	Fianna Fáil
Alma mater	Institute of Technology, Sligo

O'Rourke was born in Sligo in 1967. He is a native of County Leitrim, O'Rourke was first co-opted onto Kildare County Council in January 2011 to replace Paul Kelly. He retained his seat in the 2014 local elections, topping the poll in the Celbridge-Leixlip local electoral area, with 1,814 first preference votes.^[2]

At the 2016 general election, he was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare North to Dáil Éireann,^[3] and was subsequently appointed as Fianna Fáil junior spokesperson on Financial Services, eGovernment and Procurement by party leader Micheál Martin.^{[citation needed]}

O'Rourke lost his seat at the 2020 general election.^[4] He blamed his defeat on a smear campaign against him, which involved both social media posts and leaflets,^[5] and took legal proceedings against Facebook and Twitter seeking to identify the people involved.^[6] The orders were granted in late 2020, and Twitter supplied the information sought.^[7] However, Facebook claimed to be unable to retrieve the data.^[7]