LABOUR PARTY THINK-IN:TÁNAISTE AND Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has publicly warned colleagues in his party and at senior Government level against leaking any of the contents of the December budget.
Speaking at the end of his parliamentary party’s two-day annual “think-in” yesterday, he warned against another “season of kite-flying and rumours and leaks” as occurred last year.
Mr Gilmore also expressed disappointment at a decision by three of his party’s Senators not to attend the two-day seminar because it was being held in an upmarket hotel.
Meanwhile, party sources said a preliminary discussion among Labour Ministers focused on the need to draw out the full potential of the Croke Park agreement and the necessity to demonstrate to the public that the Government is committed to equality of treatment in the taxation system.
Mr Gilmore spoke very strongly yesterday of the need for greater confidentiality around this year’s budget preparations.
“I hope that there won’t be leaks coming out in advance of the budget. If we look at last year’s experience, I think we had a story a day about what might or might not be in the budget.
“Most of it, of course, never appeared in the budget but it did create a lot of unease among people and I hope we don’t see a repetition of that this year.
“I want to say this: that as far as the Government is concerned, we’re going to approach what we have to do so as to ensure that it is done fairly, that it is done reasonably.”
The party gathering, which took place in the four-star Carton House Hotel in Maynooth, Co Kildare, was boycotted by Labour Senators Denis Landy, James Heffernan and John Kelly.
Mr Landy said on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: “The three of us decided that this location for this event was all wrong. The optics of it were wrong in the current economic situation that we’re in.”
Mr Gilmore said: “It’s disappointing that they weren’t here, for what were very good discussions. We were all here today and yesterday to discuss the problems that are facing the country.
“These are problems that affect the people from the constituencies of the people who stayed away just as they affect the constituencies of the people who are here.
“I think that all the members of our parliamentary party who were in a position to do so should have been here.”
Responding to a comment from party chairman Colm Keaveney in an opinion piece in yesterday’s Irish Times that Labour was in danger of “becoming too focused on internal control to the detriment of honest and lively discussion”, Mr Gilmore said: “We are a party that values freedom of expression. It is a core principle . . . I encourage that, I welcome it and I also welcome and appreciate the support and the collective will of this party that when we have a job of work to do collectively, we will do it collectively.”
