Editing Progressive Democrats (section)

===Foundation===
The party was founded in 1985 by [[Desmond O'Malley]], a former senior minister in Fianna Fáil governments under [[Jack Lynch]] and [[Charles Haughey]]. O'Malley was a strong opponent of Haughey and was involved in a number of leadership heaves against Haughey, who was popular and controversial in equal measure. O'Malley had lost the Fianna Fáil whip in the Dáil in 1984 because of his support for the [[New Ireland Forum]] report and was finally expelled from Fianna Fáil early in 1985 for "conduct unbecoming" a member when he refused to support Fianna Fáil's opposition to the introduction of contraception.

At the party's launch in December 1985, O'Malley was joined by [[Mary Harney]], who had lost the Fianna Fáil parliamentary whip, and by former Fine Gael activist [[Michael McDowell (politician)|Michael McDowell]]. In the weeks after its launch, Fianna Fáil TDs [[Bobby Molloy]] and [[Pearse Wyse]], and [[Fine Gael]] TD [[Michael Keating (Irish politician)|Michael Keating]] also joined the party. The defectors were dissatisfied with the policies of existing parties, which they viewed as being insufficiently liberal, both economically and on social issues such as divorce and contraception. In Ireland in 1985, when personal income above [[Irish pound|£]]7,300 per annum was taxed at 60 percent, the country's [[Government debt|national debt]] was 104 percent of GDP, unemployment was 17.3 percent, the Progressive Democrats' liberal reformist agenda was considered especially radical.

McDowell suggested a number of names for the party, including New Democrats, New Republic, National Party, Radical Party; Progressive Democrats was not among his suggestions.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Breaking the Mould: How the PDs changed Irish politics|last=Collins|first=Stephen|publisher=Gill & Macmillan|year=2005|isbn=978-07171-4166-1|location=Dublin|pages=226}}</ref> O'Malley declared that the party ought to be pro-enterprise, in favour of economic participation by all, liberal and pluralist, hostile to institutional dependency, favourable to incentives, pro self-reliance, deregulating where possible, anti-monopoly and pro-competition, low-key on nationalism, stressing "real republican" values rather than "nationalistic myths".<ref name=":0" />