LABOUR CONFERENCE: Party ‘must govern with the head and the heart’

On the night of her election as Labour leader on July 4 last year, Joan Burton told party members — bruised as they were by the local election results — that it was time now to govern with the head and the heart.

During her maiden speech as leader at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, she told TDs and others that she recognised she had to do her “utmost to deliver”.

This will be the challenge in the coming year before the next general election, or Labour could ultimately go into meltdown and go the way of previously fallen junior coalition partners.