This was followed by two years in the tobacco company P. J. Carroll, before moving on to his final private sector job at CRH.

[7] After an initial period on the backbenches, Bruton was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Energy, following the dismissal of Edward Collins in September 1986.

[8] In opposition after 1987, Bruton served in a number of front bench positions including, Energy, Natural Resources, Health, Enterprise and Employment and Director of Policy.

Following the 1992 general election, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party formed a coalition government, which collapsed in 1994.

Bruton then helped to negotiate the Rainbow Coalition between Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Democratic Left.

After losing the 2002 party leadership election to Enda Kenny, Bruton was retained on the front bench and promoted to deputy leader as well as spokesperson on Finance.

[9] He was defeated by Enda Kenny, but he was appointed deputy leader of Fine Gael and spokesperson for Finance, posts he maintained until 2010.

He also said that "some unnamed people have done huge damage to Fine Gael through their anonymous comments to the media which has resulted in an opinion poll dominating the news agenda".

The Action Plan is based on setting realistic targets and focusing on them until the measures required are in place.

In The Irish Times in early 2014, Stephen Collins wrote approvingly that "hundreds of commitments in the programme are steadily being delivered by Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton"[14] and a year later described the annual plan which is "driven by Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton" as being "one of the outstanding success stories of the Coalition’s term".

[15] In an editorial the Irish Independent said that Bruton deserves credit for the manner in which the Action Plan for Jobs has been crafted and implemented across a range of government departments over the last three years.

The other important development noted by the OECD is the rigorous quarterly monitoring and reporting system modelled on the Troika programme.

On 9 May 2016, after talks had concluded on forming a new government, Enda Kenny appointed Bruton as Minister for Education and Skills.

Following the election of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach, Bruton was reappointed as Minister for Education and Skills on 14 June 2017.