Brendan Howlin: 'We’re not the PDs, we’ll recover from this low'

A year after the ‘worst election we’ve ever had’, Labour leader Brendan Howlin insists that his party can return to power, writes Political Correspondent Fiachra Ó Cionnaith.

He really shouldn’t be this bubbly. A year after a deeply damaging general election collapse tat he admits was “the worst we’ve ever had”, and with his party under real risk of being squeezed out by the rise of Sinn Féin and the hard left, Labour leader Brendan Howlin should be inconsolable.

With phrases such as ‘lame duck this’ and ‘irrelevant that’ burning his ears due to not-so-whispered words from rivals, and with — yet again — the party of Connolly shoved to the sidelines after a controversial coalition dalliance with power, on the surface there is little evidence to explain the cheery disposition.