Dermot Nesbitt

Dermot Nesbitt
Minister of the Environment
In office 20 February 2002 – 15 October 2002
Preceded by	Sam Foster
Succeeded by	Arlene Foster
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Down
In office 25 June 1998 – 7 March 2007
Preceded by	New Creation
Succeeded by	John McCallister
Personal details
Born	14 August 1947 Belfast, Northern Ireland
Nationality	British
Political party	Ulster Unionist Party
Spouse(s)	Oriel (m.1970)
Children	Andrew Elaine
Alma mater	Queen's University Belfast
Profession	Economist Academic
Religion	Anglican

Dermot Nesbitt (born 14 August 1947) is a politician from Northern Ireland.

Nesbitt was educated at Down High School and later studied economics at Queens University Belfast and joined the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). He was the election agent for Brian Faulkner from 1973 until 1977, most of this period spent as a member of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

Nesbitt worked as a lecturer at Queens and by 1981 he had rejoined the UUP, being elected to Down District Council. He held this seat until 1989.

Nesbitt was elected to the Northern Ireland Forum for South Down in 1996, and held this seat on the Northern Ireland Assembly at the 1998 and 2003 elections. He was a junior minister in the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 until 2002, when he took up the post of Minister of the Environment. He retired in 2007, and party colleague John McCallister retained a UUP seat in the South Down constituency.

At the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections, Nesbitt stood unsuccessfully for the Westminster seat of South Down. He currently works as a lecturer in finance at Queens.

In mid-morning on 7 December 1983, while chatting to UUP party and Queen's colleague Edgar Graham at the University Square side of the main campus library, Graham was shot in the head a number of times by an IRA gunman and died almost instantly. He was 29 years old. Two persons were later convicted of withholding evidence from the police, but no one was ever convicted for Graham's murder.^[1]

References

1. Details on the attack, see: PROTESTANT PARTY LEADER SLAIN IN ULSTER, The New York Times, 8 December 1983,
   NORTHERN IRELAND, Terrorist Activities, reports of British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland's office, in answer to questions: 16 April 1999. The government account reads:

   "Mr. Edgar Graham: At approximately 10.50 am on 7 December 1983, at University Square, Belfast, Mr. Graham was shot dead. The murder was claimed by the Irish Republican Army. RUC investigations resulted in one person being convicted of making property available and withholding information and sentenced to 2 years imprisonment suspended for 3 years. Another person, convicted of withholding information, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years. A number of other persons were arrested and interviewed in relation to this murder but released without charge."

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