Joan Burton

Joan Burton (born February 1949) is an Irish Labour Party politician and as of September 2007 is its Deputy Leader. She is a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin West and is currently the Labour Party Spokesperson for Finance.

Burton is a native of the Stoneybatter area of Dublin city. She was educated at St Joseph Sisters of Charity Secondary School, Stanhope Street and University College Dublin where she graduated with a degree in Commerce. Former Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy was in the same economics class as Burton in UCD. She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. She has worked as a lecturer in Accountancy in the Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is currently on leave from the Dublin Institute of Technology.

She first stood for election in the 1989 general election, when she stood as one of two Labour candidates in the Dublin Central constituency, failing to get elected. At the local elections in 1991, she was elected to Dublin County Council for the Mulhuddart electoral area. Burton was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1992 general election, representing Dublin West in the 27th Dáil. On that occasion the Labour Party won a record 33 seats and 19.6% of the vote nationally, an achievement that has not since been equalled. She was appointed Minister of State for Social Welfare in the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition that was formed after that election. With the breakdown of that coalition and establishment of a Rainbow Coalition between the Labour Party, Fine Gael and Democratic Left in early 1995, she became Minister of State for Justice and Foreign Affairs, a position she held until the coalition's defeat at 1997 general election.

She lost her seat in the 1997 general election to Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, but was re-elected to Fingal County Council in the 1999 local elections, on this occasion winning a seat in the Castleknock electoral area. She was re-elected to the Dáil for Dublin West at the 2002 general election. She was then appointed the Spokesperson on Finance. She was a candidate for the deputy leadership of the party in 2002, obtaining 24% of the first preference vote, but was unsuccessful.In September 2007 following an election contest for deputy leader she was successful this time, narrowly beating Jan O'Sullivan TD for the post.

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