PDs made a difference at the start but deserved all they got in the end

IT was one of the scariest nights of my life. It was February 18, 1987, and my livelihood was hanging by a thread.

I had worked for the Labour party in government for the previous four years and now the party was fighting for its life in an election in which it had been blamed for all the ills of our economy.

Terrible national debt, huge unemployment, a continuing conflagration in Northern Ireland (despite the success of the outgoing taoiseach in negotiating the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985), and considerable emigration.