Profile: Joe Higgins

Yet, after a count that lasted more than 19 hours, Higgins - joined by his 91-year-old mother - learned on Monday that transfers from the eliminated Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein's sitting MEP, had helped him beat another incumbent, Eoin Ryan, and land the last seat. Nobody seemed more surprised than the west Kerry native himself. After all, he lost his Dail seat at the last general election in 2007, and performed modestly in the two previous European elections in 1999 and 2004.

While the success of left-wing candidates marked Ireland out in an election in which most of Europe swung to the right, few believe Higgins' victory means Dubliners have suddenly embraced his socialist ideals. He wants not only the country's banks but also its ailing companies to be nationalised.

"I wouldn't say [the electorate] was aware of his policies," said Emmet Stagg, the Labour party's chief whip. "He doesn't hide them, and he would say he's a left-wing socialist, but he wouldn't be clear about it in debates like Questions and Answers. The implementation of his policies would be disastrous."

Finian McGrath, an independent TD who knows Higgins well, believes the socialist was elected because people wanted to "give the government a good kick".

"He won it because thousands of public-sector workers decided to back him," said McGrath. "Medical-card holders and people struck by the pensions levy said they'd be voting for Joe. Even gardai, which is funny considering he was in jail for the bin-charge protest.

"It wasn't just the working classes. There were people in posh houses saying they'd vote for him. They wouldn't agree with his policies but respect him as an orator and a fighter."

Eibhlin Byrne, the lord mayor of Dublin, expressed concern at what Higgins' victory would mean for the city. He's "going to Europe with a strong anti-business message and would like to see corporation tax and that kind of thing increased", she complained. "He's not really what the city needs at this time."

Born in 1949, one of nine children, Higgins grew up on a small farm in the Gaeltacht area of Lispole in Co Kerry. He went to the Christian Brothers school in Dingle and then joined the priesthood. He was sent to a Catholic seminary school in Minnesota in the 1960s. Against the backdrop of anti-Vietnam war protests and the civil rights movement, it was inevitable that Higgins would became interested in politics.

After returning to Ireland in 1972, he studied English, French and economics at University College Dublin, where he joined the Labour party, and then trained to be a teacher. He spent several years teaching in Dublin's inner city. Along the way, he lost his religious faith.

Higgins became active in Militant Tendency, an entryist Trotskyist group that operated within the Labour party and was a strong opponent of coalition government. He was elected to the Labour party's administrative council in the 1980s and the left-wing faction began to grow within Labour, with Higgins as leader and Stagg regarded as a sympathiser.

Events came to a head at a party conference in 1989, which was held in Tralee, Dick Spring's home town. Higgins was forced out of Labour after a motion was passed disallowing Militant membership. Most of the party was unhappy with Militant's secretive methods and its association with a similar group in Britain led by Derek Hatton.

"He was seen as disruptive and the Militant Tendency had got control of Liverpool and did great damage, so there was a fear Higgins might do similar damage in Ireland," said Stagg. "I didn't think that would be the case and I spoke out against his expulsion from the party. But there was another view and he was effectively expelled at the time. I regretted that because he is a man of integrity and honesty."

Afterwards, Higgins and his colleagues formed Militant Labour, which became the Socialist party in 1996. "Higgins could have been leader of Labour if he was willing to leave Militant behind," said McGrath.

Higgins was elected to Dublin city council in 1991, and ran for the Dail in 1992, but lost out to Joan Burton, who polled almost 23% as part of the Spring tide. But the socialist movement was galvanised by the introduction of water charges in the capital in 1994, and Higgins' public profile rose considerably as he led the campaign against them. So much so that he was elected to the Dail in 1997, as the Spring tide went out again. He announced he would live on an average worker's wage, donating the rest of his TD's salary to the Socialist party. After being elected as an MEP last week, he pledged to continue living on this average industrial wage, "plus any legitimate expenses for flying and hotels".

Leadership of the Dail's technical group, which gave independent TDs speaking rights, provided Higgins with a national platform to lobby for pet causes, such as tackling the exploitation of migrant workers. He spent a month in Mountjoy prison in 2003 as a result of his protest against the non-collection of refuse charges. He used his incarceration as an opportunity to lose half a stone, buying only fruit in prison and running every day.

In March 2005, Higgins and several former employees of Gama, a Turkish construction firm working in Ireland, travelled to Amsterdam where they discovered it had squirreled away up to €30m in workers' wages without their knowledge. Higgins' campaign for justice received a boost in the shape of Conor Lenihan, the overseas minister, who interrupted one of the TD's many attacks on Bertie Ahern by telling him to "stick with the kebabs".

"I suppose, in an ironic way, his idiotic comments helped us," said Higgins later. "It gave an impetus to the campaign just as things were stalling. The workers had been striking for weeks and we still had no resolution."

He came to be regarded as the wittiest speaker in the Dail, with his digs at Ahern often leaving the chamber in helpless fits of laughter. Of all his political opponents, the former taoiseach seemed to find Higgins the most formidable.

He once described asking Ahern a question as "trying to play handball against a haystack". On another occasion he ridiculed Ahern's description of himself as one of the few socialists in the Dail; he satirised the then taoiseach's attempts to return a dig-out to his friends, and he really brought the house down when he asked if Willie O'Dea, the defence minister who had just posed squinting down a gun barrel, had been asked to check in his weapon at the door.

Tony Gregory once mused that Higgins "spends entire weekends dreaming up these great phrases. He doesn't come up with them on the spot. He always arrives in a panic the morning he has to ask the question. He gets nervous, says it puts him under a lot of stress".

"Without a doubt, it was Bertie he irritated the most," said McGrath. "Joe was one of the few guys who could get under his skin."

Stagg agrees. "He became an entertainer in the Dail, with very witty and cutting comments, and Ahern couldn't conceal his dislike of him. He didn't have an answer for Higgins.

"But Joe takes himself extremely seriously and he'd get annoyed if people were treating areas he seeks to represent as light-hearted. He really does object to being called Stalinist."

Higgins protested: "Obviously, they don't know of the huge chasm between Trotskyism and Stalinism when they try to hang the huge crimes of Stalin around my neck. What I represent is democratic socialism, supporters of which were slaughtered in Russia."

His policies are unlikely to have much impact in Europe, but many are hopeful that Higgins' oratorical skills come to be appreciated in the European parliament as much as they were in the Dail. "I'm already looking forward to his battles with the British National party," said McGrath. "That'll be great craic."