TÁNAISTE
LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL PROTECTION
MARCH 2011 - MAY 2016
29th Government of Ireland, March 2011
Maxwell Photography
'Politics is really interesting, fulfilling, a wonderful life. You get to work on ideas and issues that you’re passionately interested in. I would strongly recommend it.'
Joan Burton was elected leader of the Labour Party on 4 July 2014 by the party membership.The first woman Labour leader in the party’s 102-year history. Joan was Tánaiste in the Coalition Government, From 4 July 2014 - 6 May 2016.
During her time as Tánaiste her party played a major role in closing Anglo Irish Bank, ending the bank guarantee and exiting the bailout.
Joan was key to preventing the sell-off of State assets, protecting core welfare payments and increasing the minimum wage twice.
She was influential in removing 700,000 low-paid workers from the Universal Social Charge (USC) net, placed collective bargaining on a statutory basis, and ensured that, through the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road Agreements, there would be no compulsory public sector redundancies. Thereby, industrial peace was maintained and public services were protected.
She piloted the Gender Recognition Act 2015, relating to transgender rights, through the Dáil. As Tánaiste, Joan implemented a Labour Party commitment by achieving agreement for a date for a referendum on marriage equality for gay people.
Joan recalls vividly the first time she decided that she would be a Labour Candidate. As she told Úna Claffey in 1992, she was in Nairobi and she had driven a jeep over 600 miles from Dar es Salaam, with her husband Pat and daughter Aoife, where they were living at the time. Socialising with friends over the Christmas period she was playing an American truth game and when she was asked the question of what she wanted to do in her future she answered that she would like to stand for election.
She had joined the Labour Party after she left college but without a thought of being a candidate for public office, her focus was policy and she was very active in the party. Her experiences in Africa made her more conscious of women in Ireland, as she described ‘women wore the veil, (in Africa) but divorce was available.’
Joan Burton in Africa, 1985
Joan Burton Collection
Joan Burton was born in County Carlow in 1949. She was, at the age of two and a half, adopted by John and Bridie Burton, whose own infant daughter had died.
The family moved to Stoneybatter, close to the city centre.
Bridie Burton instilled in Joan that she could be whatever she wanted to be. Joan was educated in Sisters of Charity Secondary School, Stanhope Street. She recalls the social justice instilled in her by the nuns. A Civics teacher in school encouraged her to apply for a Dublin Corporation scholarship.
Joan had begun work as a clerical officer when she got news that she had won a Dublin Corporation scholarship. She went in to University College Dublin with the idea of doing History and English, but she met Mr Keogh, a porter, who said to her ‘you’re going to need a job. Do commerce.’
Joan did not take part in student politics in University College Dublin. At that time, Bridie got cancer and Joan nursed her until she died while Joan was in college. When Joan left college she became a trainee accountant, she became the first woman apprentice Price Waterhouse had taken on in over thirty years. A meeting with David Thornley, a Labour TD for Cabra and Finglas, led her to join the Labour Party.
There she met Pat Carroll, her future husband, who had completed a Masters in physics, and was a Dublin City Councillor. Joan and her husband were both lecturing in the Dublin Institute of Technology and active in the party and other organisations.
Joan was Honorary Secretary of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement 1979 – 1983, until the couple took a leave of absence to go to Africa as part of the Irish Development Corporation Programme. They took their young daughter Aoife with them.
The couple both lectured in the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from 1983 - 1986. They returned to Ireland in 1987.
Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement 1979 to 1983
Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare 1992-1994 with special responsibility for poverty, including EU Poverty Plans, and integration of the tax and social welfare codes, 1993 to 1994.
Joan Burton Collection
Joan introduced the back-to-work allowance and other measures to encourage the move from social welfare into employment.
Joan Burton Collection
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, 20 December 1994- 26 June 1997. (Overseas Development).
She took responsibility for piloting the Refugee Act, 1996 through the Dáil.
Elected Labour TD for Dublin West in the General Election for 29th Dáil, May 2002.
Burton contested the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 2002.
Joan was re-elected to the 31st Dáil in February 2011 – she was the first person to be elected and secured 22.5% of 1st preference votes. Joan was appointed Minister for Social Protection in March 2011.
Burton contested the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 2002.
July 2014