Michael Mc Gimpsey

Michael Mc Gimpsey

Michael McGimpsey MLA (born 1 July 1948) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Member of the Legislative Assembly for Belfast South who has twice served in the Northern Ireland Executive. Once seen as a successor to David Trimble, McGimpsey served until 2011 as Northern Ireland's Health Minister with responsibility for nearly half of the NI Executive's budget.

McGimpsey was born in Donaghadee, County Down and was educated in Regent House Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. He is a businessman aside from politics involved in property development. In the mid 1980s he came to prominence alongside his brother Christopher when they challenged the Anglo-Irish Agreement by bringing a suit against the Irish government in the High Court of the Republic of Ireland, arguing that the Agreement was invalid because it contradicted Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland (this argument was unusual coming from Unionists because of the traditional Unionist opposition to these two articles.) The case failed in the High Court, and again on appeal to the Supreme Court.

McGimpsey's UUP office is located on Sandy Row in South Belfast.