Gilmore elected Party Leader - Labour must change to help change Ireland for the better
Issued : Thursday 6 September, 2007
Statement by Eamon Gilmore TD
Leader of the Labour Party, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade
Comments by Eamon Gilmore TD following declaration of his election as Leader of the Labour Party
I wish to thank my colleagues, Michael D Higgins and Willie Penrose for nominating me, and I wish to thank the entire Labour Party for unanimously agreeing to my election as Leader. I pay tribute to my predecessor Pat Rabbitte. In my time in Dail Eireann, I have known three great Leaders of the Labour Party: Pat, Ruairi Quinn and Dick Spring and I am honoured to walk in their footsteps.
Today I think of my own personal journey from Caltra in County Galway to my election as the tenth leader of the Party which was founded by James Connolly and Big Jim Larkin.
But I think too, of the distance which our country has come since I was growing up in the sixties and seventies, and how Ireland has changed for the better. How we are no longer a poor place from which our best emigrated, but a strong prosperous economy to which others are attracted for work and a new life. How a cold, conservative island has become a modern, liberal European state. And how a dirty, sectarian war has finally yielded to politics and peace and the prospect of a better future. All through that journey, Labour led the way. At every milestone, we set the pace. I am personally proud to have been part of it.
Today, our country is already on the next stage of the journey, shaping the Ireland of the future. And Labour's place is up at the front, once again leading the way. How to harness our economic success to make a better society and to end poverty; how to secure the future, economically and ecologically, for our children; how to make the public space safe and the public services more efficient; how to get climate change under control and how to put people first in this changing global century.
Labour's mission is never about doing things just for ourselves, or even for our party. It is about what we can do for our country. In the immortal words of Connolly: 'The cause of Labour is the cause of Ireland and the cause of Ireland is the cause of Labour'.
But to help change Ireland for the better, Labour itself has to change. We need to change the way we organise, becoming more open to new members and new candidates. We have to change the way we communicate, applying the most modern methods to get across our message. We have to be more positive, telling people what we are for and not just what we oppose. And we have to bond better with our voters and our potential voters to construct a new politics for and of the new Ireland.
That is why I have offered to lead Labour on a Project of Renewal, not just of the party itself, but of the country and of its politics and of our society.
In my entire life I have never been as energised or motivated by a challenge such as the one I am now undertaking. But I know I have the support and the comradeship of the Labour Parliamentary Party and of the members of the Labour Party. And I know too that we have the goodwill of many, many more. Most people in this country want Labour to do better because they trust Labour to do our very best for the country. All I ask now, is that Labour gets a fair hearing as we begin the process of renewal.
Is cuis onoir domsa, go pearsanta, go bhfuil me tofa, d'aon ghuth, mar cheannaire ar Phairti an Lucht Oibre. Cuis broid e do mo chlann 's do mo chairde,'s do mo mhuitir i nGaillimh agus go hairithe do mo chomhleachai agus mo lucht tacaiochta i nDun Laoghaire. Ni fada uathu a bheas me, is cuma cen curamai nua a bheidh agam amach anseo mar Cheannaire.
Ar deireadh, agus go spesialta ar fad, ba mhaith liom buiochas ar leith a ghamhail le chuile dhuine a ghlach pairt i mo fheachtais ghairid don cheannaracht, agus ba mhaith liom a luadh go hairithe, Bernard McCabe, Angela Loscher agus ar gCathaoirleach, an Seanadoir Dominic Hannigan.
Seo tus aistir nua domsa, do Phairti an Lucht Oibre agus ta suil agam don tir. Ar aghaidh leis an obair!
