P.J. Mara

Who is P.J. Mara?

Patrick James "P. J." Mara is an Irish public affairs consultant and former senator. He was best known as a political adviser to former Taoiseach Charles Haughey. He served briefly in the Seanad on two separate occasions, in 1981 and 1982. On both occasions, he was nominated by the Taoiseach Charles Haughey. Mara served as Press Secretary to Fianna Fáil between 1983 and 1987. In 1987 he was appointed Government Press Secretary, and he held this position until February 1992, when he left the public service to move into the private sector. He subsequently returned to serve as Fianna Fáil director of elections for the 1997, 2002, and 2007 general elections. He is a member of the board of Digicel, the company founded by Denis O'Brien to build mobile networks in the Caribbean.

He was regularly lampooned on the satirical RTÉ radio sketch show Scrap Saturday, which ran from 1989 to 1991.