Dick Spring will be able to relax for the first time since 1982, when he attends Labour's national conference as the North Kerry TD in Tralee this weekend. It is the first full-scale party conference since he stood down from the leadership in 1997 after 15 years.
Unburdened by the demands of the leadership, he will be the recipient of a presentation and glowing tributes from his successor, Mr Ruairi Quinn. Mr Spring will get the local kudos for helping to secure the conference, which brings several hundred visitors to his constituency on a bank holiday weekend.
This is his 20th year in representative politics. He was elected to Kerry County Council and Tralee Urban Council in June 1979 and to the Dail two years later, when he took the seat that his father, the late Dan Spring, held from 1943. At 49 he is at an age where many politicians would be assuming the leadership of a party rather than having retired from it.
The speculation about his future centres on whether he will remain in domestic politics, take a European post or stand down at the next election to concentrate on his legal career and growing business interests.
He has given no indication to Labour activists locally, or the party nationally, that he intends to do other than contest the next general election.
On the day he resigned the leadership, in November 1997, he said he would contest the next election, serve in cabinet again and was "going to be around in politics for a long time to come". That may well be what will happen.
Local sources point to the strong attachment the Spring family has to the Dail seat, adding that Mr Spring, after a break from the rigours of national politics, would be ready for a ministerial job if Labour returned to government after the next election. His name has been mentioned for the job of secretary-general and high representative of the EU's common foreign and security policy, which will be filled in June.
Although he started off as a strong contender for the post, sources in Brussels said this week that he was now regarded as an outsider because of Ireland's non-membership of NATO.
There has also been speculation that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, might offer either Mr Spring or Fine Gael's Mr Alan Dukes the job of EU Commissioner to succeed Mr Padraig Flynn, but Government sources are ruling out the post going to an Opposition TD. Mr Spring's business interests include membership of the boards of the US jet engineering company, SIFCO Turbine Components, and the Kerry-based financial services company, Fexco.
He is a non-executive chairman of the computer software company, Airtel ATN. A barrister, he is a member of the international advisory services division of a Washington and Boston law firm, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo.
Although with a low-profile nationally - he stood down as the party's spokesman on foreign affairs - Mr Spring continues to nurse his North Kerry constituency.
In this a key player is his sister, the constituency secretary, Maeve Spring, a ready-made Labour candidate in North Kerry should Mr Spring ever stand down.
Right now, the betting locally is that he will not, barring a very attractive offer from Europe.
