of Kerry County Council. He was elected to Dáil Éireann for the first time at the 1987 general election, for Kerry North, and was re-elected there at the six subsequent general elections. Deenihan held a number of front bench portfolios for Fine Gael, including Youth and Sport (1988–1992) and Tourism and Trade (1992–1994) while Fine Gael were in opposition. In 1994 Fine Gael came to office without a general election, and on 20 December 1994 Deenihan was appointed by the Fine Gael–Labour–Democratic Left coalition government as Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry. In 1997, he became party spokesperson for the Office of Public Works. In the 2002 general election, which resulted in a near meltdown for Fine Gael, Deenihan saw his toughest election to date, being re-elected by a margin of almost 500 votes ahead of sitting TD Dick Spring. After the election of Enda Kenny as party leader he again received a Fine Gael front bench position as party spokesperson for Arts, Sport and Tourism. In the aftermath of the 2007 general election, he became party spokesperson on Defence, after being elected atop the poll in the Kerry North constituency with 12,697 votes. In July 2010, he was appointed as party spokesperson on Tourism, Culture and Sport. Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht At the 2011 general election, he was elected for the new constituency of Kerry North–West Limerick. On 9 March 2011, he was appointed a member of the Fine Gael–Labour government as Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In May 2011, he set out proposals to acquire from the Bank of Ireland the old Irish Parliament building in College Green for the state, to use as a cultural venue. In November 2011, he met with the stars of Titanic: Blood & Steel, while they were filming on location in Dublin. He was reported by the Irish Examiner as having announced the awarding of the title of City of Culture 2014 to Limerick in June 2012 without indicating the criteria for selection. Minister of State for the Diaspora On 11 July 2014, he was dropped as a cabinet minister in a reshuffle, and was appointed by the government as Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach and at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for the Diaspora. His constituency was abolished at the 2016 general election;