page_title: Helen McEntee
section_title: Brexit negotiations
hierarchical_section_title: Helen McEntee / Political career / Minister of State for European Affairs / Brexit negotiations
caption_attribution_description: EPP Summit, Brussels, 12 December 2019
context_page_description: Helen McEntee is an Irish Fine Gael politician who has served as Minister for Justice since June 2020. From 2017 to 2020, she served as Minister of State for European Affairs. She has been a Teachta Dála for the Meath East constituency since 2013. She previously served as Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People from 2016 to 2017.
  The daughter of Shane McEntee, who was a Fine Gael politician and TD from 2005 to 2012, she was raised in Meath and studied at Dublin City University. After taking a job in industry, she worked at Leinster House as her father's assistant from 2010, until his death in 2012. She was first elected as a TD at the 2013 Meath East by-election, triggered by the death of her father, and she became the first Fine Gael candidate since 1975 to win a by-election with the party in government. She was re-elected to represent the constituency in 2016, and subsequently appointed as a junior minister of state in the Department of Health. She was also chair of the government's youth mental health task force, an organisation that works to increase awareness of mental health issues among young people.
context_section_description: In January 2019, Helen McEntee told the BBC the Irish backstop was absolutely necessary, because of the UK's red lines on leaving the European single market and European customs union, to avoid a hard Border and protect the Northern Ireland peace process. She called on the UK to live up to its obligations of the Good Friday Agreement.
  McEntee was elected as Vice-President of the European People's Party (EPP) in November 2019 at the party's Congress in Zagreb.
caption: McEntee at a summit in Brussels as Ireland's Minister for European Affairs
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