James Harte (born 27 February 1958) is an Irish former Labour Party politician and was a member of Seanad Éireann from April 2011 to September 2015.
In 2006 he resigned from Fine Gael after failing to secure a nomination from the party to contest the Donegal North-East constituency for the 2007 general election.
In February 2012, he offered to pay for the flight of a Polish worker living in Donegal to return "home" to stop her receiving unemployment benefit and FAS training.
[citation needed] After it became apparent the article Harte was talking about was mistranslated many people took to Twitter to question him about his opinion.
[5][6][7] In the early hours of 16 November 2013, Harte was found unconscious at Newmarket Square, Dublin with severe head injuries, having suffered a fall.