John Patrick Healy (9 March 1931 – 5 December 2014), known as Jackie Healy-Rae, was an Irish Independent politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kerry South constituency from 1997 to 2011.

[1] Healy-Rae was the first of six children born to Daniel and Mary Healy, and grew up on his family's farm at the foot of Mangerton Mountain, near Kilgarvan in County Kerry.

[4] Two sons, Danny and Michael were members of Kerry County Council for the Killarney and Killorglin local electoral areas respectively before becoming TDs.

[6][7] Three of his grandchildren, Jackie, Johnny and Maura Healy-Rae, are elected members of Kerry County Council for the Castleisland, Kenmare and Killarney local electoral areas respectively.

He headed several Fianna Fáil by-election campaigns, most notably the election of John O'Leary to the Dáil in 1966.

In 1973, Healy-Rae was first co-opted to Kerry County Council as a Fianna Fáil member, following the death of sitting councillor Michael Doherty.

Healy-Rae was one of four Independent TDs (the others were Harry Blaney, Tom Gildea and Mildred Fox) who supported the government throughout its five-year term and rejected the opposition Fine Gael.

He sat through fewer than half the meetings of an Oireachtas committee tasked with dealing with social welfare he received €20,000 a year to chair.

Healy-Rae has been criticised for not making the details of the deal public and for supporting the government over highly controversial cutbacks (in contrast to Finian McGrath who made the details public by entering his deal into the Dáil record and who withdrew his support from the government in 2008, over cutbacks in the health sector).