Early Political Career
Three weeks after his 29th birthday, Gerard Sweetman contested the 1937 general election. His target was the four-seater Carlow–Kildare constituency. Out of a field of 7 candidates, Sweetman came sixth with 8.5% of the vote.
He did not contest the 1938 general election, but ran again in 1943, and once again failed to secure election. He secured a Seanad seat in weeks that followed, and remained in the upper house through the 1944 election, until finally, with the creation of a separate Kildare constituency, he won a Dáil seat at the 1948 general election.
The 1948 general election returned the first inter-party government under Taoiseach John A. Costello. This coalition represented an 'anybody-but-Fianna-Fáil' gathering from across the political spectrum, and the newest Kildare TD sat on the backbenches until the government fell in 1951.
A second inter-party government took office in June 1954 with Sweetman promoted to Minister for Finance.
In Professor Tom Garvin's review of the 1950s 'News from a New Republic', he comes in for praise as a moderniser and Garvin places him with a cross party group including Daniel Morrissey of Fine Gael and William Norton of the Labour Party as well as Sean Lemass of Fianna Fáil who were pushing a modernising agenda
Sweetman also served as a member of Kildare County Council, including a term as chairman of the Council in the late 1940s.
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