Labour: the party for the new Ireland
Issued : Sunday 26 August, 2007
Speech by Eamon Gilmore TD
Leader of the Labour Party, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade
I pay tribute to the memory of Desmond Greaves, who has made an enormous contribution to Irish Labour history. His legacy is the more remarkable because of the extent to which Labour has been written out of Irish history. It is a deficit which must be restored!
We are not, however, here today to talk history. It is of course important to learn from history, but we must never be prisoners of the past, whether the past relates to struggles, however heroic, which are long over, or the past is just the last election! My concern, at this seminar at least, is with the future of Labour in Ireland.
Since the General Election, and particularly in recent days, some commentators have questioned the relevance of Labour in the new, modern Ireland. I wish to respond.
Firstly, how do they think the new modern Ireland came about? Not so very long ago, Ireland was a poor, backward, conservative, country. It would have been hard to imagine then, the modern country which it has become, prosperous and liberal, a place where people come to, rather than emigrate from, to seek work and economic opportunity.
More than any other political movement, it was Labour and its allies which drove the modernisation of this State. Who modernised the laws on personal freedoms and legalised contraception and divorce, for example? Labour. Who started Equal Pay for women, and introduced most of our Equality legislation? Labour. Who brought in most of our social protections? Labour. As a car bumper sticker in California states "Labor: The folks who invented the week-end".
But, what about the economy you say! Yes, Labour had a hand in that too. Where did the idea of Social Partnership come from but the Labour movement? And was it not a Labour Finance Minister who brought us the Euro and who lowered Corporation Tax to stimulate investment.
The reality is that some of those who now appear as modern celebrities were still cowering from the crozier, while Labour was doing battle with conservative forces to make Ireland a modern country.
This is now a new prosperous, liberal modern Ireland. Labour is proud of the role we played in making Ireland what it is today, and we rejoice in the prosperity and improved living standards which have resulted.
But we want Ireland to do better. We want to continue the prosperity and to build on it.
We have a strong economy, but our society is malfunctioning. There is something missing. And everybody knows there is something missing!
Take Health. Why does Ireland, one of the richest countries in the world, leave old and sick people in pain and discomfort instead of giving them the good medical care which they would get in much poorer countries?
Why do we always seem to build schools and local amenities long after the houses are sold and occupied?
Why don't we provide the public transport when we are expanding our towns and cities and not decades afterwards?
What is wrong in our country that boys and young men are not safe from random violence in their own neighbourhoods, not to mention the increase in wanton violence and gangland shootings.
The new modern Ireland faces new and complex challenges. And there is no political message more relevant to this new Ireland than that of Labour. Because Labour's politics, alone, integrates the economic and the social and the environmental. Labour says it is not enough for our country to have a strong economy. We also need a functioning society and a safe, sustainable environment.
Labour's core values are expressed in many ways. Freedom, Equality, Solidarity. (Liberte. Egalite. Fraternite). Pat Rabbitte called it "The Fair Society". Some call it Socialism or Social Democracy.
But, political terms often lose their meaning and my favourite summary comes from an Italian Social Democrat whom I recently heard at a Council of Europe seminar:
"Often, when I have to explain to someone, especially young people, what the Left is and what the difference is between Left and Right, I employ three little phrases. The first is Not only me,but others too; the second is Not only here but elsewhere too; and the third is Not only today but tomorrow too"
There are no politics more relevant to the new modern Ireland than these core values of Labour. The core values of Labour do not change from one decade to the next, nor from one election to the next. Values, principles, core beliefs are not for changing or trading. What Labour must first do is to renew and reassert these values, and to have confidence in them.
But the application of these principles and core values must of necessity be different in the 21st century and must keep on changing as the century progresses. That is because the 21st century itself is very different.
This is the first truly Global Century. Over the past 20 years we have experienced the most profound historical and economic changes since the Industrial Revolution. Science and technology are driving that change. Digitized media and other technological developments have revolutionized the concepts of space and time. Everywhere in the world more and more people can communicate with each other via the internet in fractions of seconds. Information and knowledge are instantly available at almost all locations of the world. For the first time in the history of humankind, a global economy has developed.
This too is the century when we must face up to and reverse global warming, or else we put life on the planet at risk. This is the century in which the most valuable natural resource will be clean water. This is the century in which the oil resources of the planet will run dry and alternative energy will be a necessity and not just a Green option.
This will be the century where the movement of people and immigration will be the norm and not the exception. People will live longer, and life expectancy, at least in the developed world, may be well over a hundred!
Labour can face all these new challenges with great confidence. Firstly, because we are not alone. As members of the Irish Labour Party, we belong to a global political movement, through the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International. We are part of the biggest political family on the globe, and however great the economic and political problems of the globalised world may appear, we know that in every country, no matter how different the conditions, we have comrades who share our basic beliefs and who are striving, like us, for the very same values.
As Michael D Higgins recently put it Labour's project is at once global and local. Our challenge as a political movement is how to achieve that in the new Ireland.
It begins by having self confidence in the core values which define us. We must believe! Restored confidence in the core values of Labour will in turn enable us to make the changes that are necessary to respond to the needs of these new times.
As a progressive movement, our purpose is to constantly seek improvement. Here in Ireland, despite our new prosperity, inequality is deep, the gap between rich and poor is wider and our public services need modernisation and reform.
There are new challenges. Take the labour market. Globalised capital wants a flexible labour market. But flexibility can be a two way street. Today's worker wants the flexibility to take time off with children, to vary the working week and working day to be there for them when they get home from school, or to get some time off to study , sit exams and be better equipped for the changes in the workplace. Let's have flexibility in the labour market. We are likely to get it anyway, on the employers' terms, so why not seek the flexibilities which benefit the worker, and incorporate them in the employment contract, in our labour laws and in our welfare system.
Indeed the welfare system itself needs to be reformed to meet the requirements of modern day Ireland. The Labour movement, particularly in Europe, can be proud of the Welfare State. But it needs to be reformed.
The "job for life", certainly in the private sector, is a thing of the past. Most workers will have to go through transition periods either between jobs or between complete changes of career, probably a number of times during their working lives. Our existing model of "unemployment" payments is inadequate and out of date. We need a new model which will provide for pay-related support while the worker is undergoing re-training or further education or preparing to set up a new business.
The reforms which are required in welfare call for a new thinking on the relationship between the individual and the State and its institutions. This new thinking is to be found, to some extent, in the new housing policy advocated by the Labour Party in the run up to the election, particularly in our proposed "Begin to Buy" scheme.
The starting point for Labour's new housing policy is that everyone should be enabled to purchase their own home. Some will chose not to, but that should be their choice and not something forced on them because of their income or because they don't come from a well heeled background. Under our scheme, the role of the state and its housing authorities would change. In the Begin to Buy Scheme, the housing authority would act as an enabler, bridging the gap between what the home buyer can afford and what he/she needs. This would free the home buyer to buy what he/she needs and where he/she needs it, and would gradually move the State away from the mass provision of means tested social housing. Ireland's current public housing policy forces people to stay poor and dependant on the State. Labour's policy would free people from that dependence and enable them to get on with their lives.
It is of course a pity that Labour did not get the three extra seats which we needed to put us in Government to implement that and other policies. But that should not stop us from campaigning for the policy. And campaigning for all the other policies which were contained in the election manifesto!
Election manifestos are often forgotten about when the election is over, and sometimes even by the parties that win the elections!
Labour produced a very comprehensive manifesto for the general election. We should now build on it and use the ideas in it as the basis for campaigns, in the Dail, the local authorities and in our constituencies.
We have positive things to say and new ideas and new solutions to put forward. We need to shift the emphasis in what we are saying and how we are saying it from the very negative, oppositionist role that traditional opposition confers on us. We need to set the agenda more with fresh ideas. We need to become more a party for aspiration and for enterprise.
Labour also needs to set clear political and electoral objectives for itself. Labour should now set out to win close to 30 seats at the next General Election and to build an active, campaigning organisation in every constituency which is capable of winning a Dail seat in every constituency. We need to end the perception, and reality, of Labour being the "half party" in a two and a half party set-up.
These , of course are all matters that will no doubt be debated throughout the party and among the wider population in the weeks ahead. I believe that that debate will be good for Labour, good for progressive politics and good for the country. I look forward to it, whatever role I may play in it.
