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Agenda is to grow party: get into gov; implement policies, Gilmore tells Labour Youth conference

Issued : Saturday 27 October, 2007

We are both at the beginning of something tonight. I am at the beginning of my leadership of the Labour Party. Many of you are at the beginning of your involvement, however long or short, in politics.

We need to decide together what we want to do as a political movement, not just next week, or in the next election, but over the next fifteen years or two decades.

We need to plan now so that Ireland in 2020 and beyond is shaped by our values - Labour values.

Many of the problems encountered by people living in Ireland today are a direct result of a lack of vision, and a lack of ambition.

Corrupt planning was replaced by weak planning, with the result that thousands of people have been left stranded with no public transport, and few local facilities.

Our carbon emissions have soared along with car usage, so that the taxpayer is paying for carbon credits from abroad instead of more frequent buses.

A divide between native and newcomer children is emerging in our education system because we have a 19th century model of school provision catering to a 21st century population.

We may all be better off than we were fifteen years ago, but the gap between the richest and the poorest has not gone away.

The child of early school leavers is still twenty-three times more likely to live in poverty than the child of third level graduates. How many of them have been born in the past ten years? What could have been done to break the cycle? The targeted initiatives set up under Niamh Bhreathnach were a start, but they were marginalised as pilot projects for years under the next administration.

Labour's vision the last time in government is the reason we have record numbers of students attending third level this autumn. It is the reason why people no longer have to stay in an unhappy or abusive marriage. It is why we have strong equality legislation. And we achieved that within just a few years.

We did it then, and we will do it again. So what should be on our agenda for 2020?

How will we ensure that our economy is prosperous in the long-term? How will we face the challenges thrown up by globalisation? Change will be inevitable, so how will we help people to benefit from it?

How are we going to help people in low-skilled jobs move up the opportunity ladder? Creating jobs is essential for any economy. Making those jobs a springboard, not a poverty trap, is what would make us different.

Education is one way we could achieve this. How can we make lifelong learning a reality, not an empty platitude? What will it take to eradicate educational inequality? Imagine an Ireland where ability and effort are the only reliable indicators of how well a child will succeed in school. Now that would be truly radical.

And there are other questions, like what should children and young people be learning in schools? How should our universities respond to the global competition for money and talent?

What are we going to do about global warming and peak oil? Will we plan our cities, towns and villages so that they are sustainable in 2020, even though oil and carbon are cheap now?

Global warming is the kind of collective problem socialism exists to solve. If we cannot conceive of some solutions to reduce Ireland's carbon footprint, no one will.

What kind of health system do we want in 2020? A bigger proportion of our population will be over 65. How will they be looked after? Who should pay for their care?

Ireland is one of the wealthiest countries in the EU, yet we also have one of the highest levels of child poverty. One in nine children, in fact. Can we put an end to poverty once and for all? Can we stretch that high?

Increased global migration will be the defining characteristic of the next decade. Ireland is already at the coal face, having seen its foreign-born population jump from close to zero to more than ten per cent in fifteen years. What will it mean to be Irish over the coming fifteen years? What do we want it to mean?

And what should be the role of a modern, affluent Ireland in Europe, and in the international community?

Why send troops to Chad, but not to Burma? If Burma had been in Europe we would have had another Kosovo. Instead we have another brutal crackdown.

These are not easy questions. Their answers are not without cost. But if we are to be ready to govern in a few short years, then we need to be prepared to face them together.

My agenda is to grow the party; get into government; and keep it there for as long as possible to implement Labour policies.

I cannot do this without the support of Labour Youth, for three important reasons.

Firstly, the reason I am here, and the reason you are not climbing the ladder in Ógra Fianna Fáil is because we share the same values.

Joining Labour is not a career move. It is a commitment to a cause.

It is a philosophy grounded in collective action for the common good, not individualism and selfishness. It is a philosophy of solidarity, of the active pursuit of justice beyond our own borders. It is a philosophy with fairness for all as its goal, not short-term satisfaction for the few.

We can only grow the party and turn those values into government policy if we are working in harmony, not fighting with each other over arcane issues no one outside the party has the remotest interest in.

Secondly, the party needs your generation's aspiration for the future. What kind of Ireland do they want to be living in in 2020? I need you to tell me. But I also need you to bring your generation with you.

We are part of a political project, all of us, and that needs a broad-ranging vision. It is not about point-scoring, or just being more radical than the next group on campus. I need you to tell me what is important to your peers - to members of your generation who broadly share Labour values - and not just what is important to your branch this week.

Over the coming months I will be inviting Labour Youth to speak to the parliamentary party about its political priorities. I want to know what you think are the burning issues for your generation. I also want to know what you want to achieve politically over the next couple of years, and how you are going to go about it.

I will support you. But I also need you to be honest with me. We need to win hearts and minds, not just the intellectual argument.

Finally, I need your support because you are the future of the Labour Party. You will be its torch bearers. Some of you may be standing for election over the next fifteen years. Some of you will be selecting and fighting for Labour candidates, and forging Labour policy.

Labour Youth is not a separate bubble, where only so-called 'youth issues' rule. There is no idealism-pragmatism divide. It is not a case of slipping past the age of 25 and into a different party. It is not like finding pubs too loud to have a proper conversation, and other quirks of aging.

Unfortunately, too often our Youth members turn 26 and simply slip off the scene altogether. I am asking to you tonight to think about the future, and your place in it. We need you in the party, now and in the years to come.

We need you in your schools and campuses, in your communities and in your constituencies.

We need you to be leaders, both within the party and outside it.

And we need your generation's vision for the future.