Joe Higgins (born 20 May 1949) is an Irish former Socialist Party politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency from 1997 to 2007 and from 2011 to 2016.

In 1996, he campaigned against local authority water and refuse charges and contested the Dublin West by-election, losing narrowly to Brian Lenihan Jnr.

"[12][13][14] On 19 September 2003, Higgins was sentenced to one month in Mountjoy Prison as a result of his protest against the non-collection of refuse in his constituency during the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign.

[19] When President Mary McAleese telephoned Higgins in 2004 to inform him of her decision to seek re-election, he told her that her office was "superfluous and should be abolished".

[24][25] In May 2006, Higgins boycotted an address to the Dáil by Australian Prime Minister John Howard owing to Australia's role in the Iraq War, the country's "criminal" legislation on worker's rights, and its theft of oil and gas from the poor people of East Timor, describing it as "reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher".

[26][27][28] In October 2006, Higgins requested the suspension of normal business in the Dáil after it emerged that Ryanair had upped its share in Aer Lingus overnight, amid concerns for workers' rights and passenger welfare.

[30] Higgins successfully contested the 2009 European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency, beating two incumbents, Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin and Eoin Ryan of Fianna Fáil, for the third and final seat.

As Irish law prohibits politicians having a dual mandate, Higgins vacated this council seat in July 2009 and was replaced by Matt Waine.

He claimed the EFSF was a "mechanism to make working class people throughout Europe pay for the crisis of a broken financial system and a crisis-ridden European capitalism".

[47] Higgins announced that he would "put up a principled opposition to the Fine Gael-Labour coalition which is most likely", since they are "going to carry on with the same policies as Fianna Fáil, making working-class people pay for the bankers' bad gambling debts".

[50][51][52] Ahead of the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the Republic of Ireland in May 2011, Higgins asked Enda Kenny in the Dáil if "the Queen of England [sic] might be politely asked to contribute to the cost of her bed & breakfast during her visit to Ireland", observing that "the Irish people needed the financial help since they could soon be sleeping rough, as the country faced bankruptcy to pay off the debts of German and French banks, which had recklessly gambled and lost in the Irish property bubble".

[55] In September 2011, Higgins committed to facilitating the nomination of Senator David Norris for a place on the ballot paper ahead of the 2011 Irish presidential election, despite multiple controversies enveloping the candidate.

[57] His description of allowing the banks to solve their own problems as being "like sending a bunch of marauding foxes that had raided a henhouse back to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to their victims" was quoted several times by other commentators in the media.

[62] At her campaign launch Higgins said Taoiseach Enda Kenny was engaging in a "cynical manipulation of the political agenda" by delaying the publication of his government's comprehensive spending review until after the elections.

At the time he stated his belief that the "baton of elected representation" should be carried by another generation of Socialist Party politicians — like Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy.