Labour leadership contenders defy gloom with lively event

As the West basked in sunshine and most Galwegians made a beeline for Salthill’s promenade to gaze at Galway Bay, a group of about 200 retreated into a dark, almost windowless room in the Clayton Hotel to gaze at their navels.

Last night’s stop on the Labour Party leadership hustings roadshow was in Galway, and despite the bunker connotations of the venue (and the undeniable enfeebled state of the party) it was a fairly lively affair.

Being June 16th, the tenor of the debate was a bit more bloomsday than gloomsday, even for a party on its uppers.

The West isn’t exactly Labour heartland. Galway City and Sligo towns are its bulwark here but any gains the party made in the surrounding constituencies were unravelled in the local elections in May. A fair smattering of defeated councillors were in the crowd.

Pointed questions

The audience was a little more polite than in Dublin but the pointed questions did come as the evening progressed.

How should Labour deal with Sinn Féin? Why was there no transparency with banks and NAMA? In what circumstances would Labour leave government? Why was the party in disarray?

The favourite, Joan Burton, accepted that voters were unhappy. “We have not achieved the second part of our mission which is repairing society, as we have repaired the economy,” she said in her stump speech.

She listed her priorities: getting people back to work, building new schools, providing affordable housing, investing in health, and a new growth plan across the EU.

She also addressed any concerns she would lead the party out of Government. It was essential to remain “to be in a position to drive through the mission for a new republic”.

For his part, her rival Alex White was probably required to decouple himself from an image of a prosperous, Dublin southside barrister. He emphasised his humble roots, the son of a railworker, the first person in his family to go to university, his trade union activity, his desire to do public service.

He also pitched the choice as being between selecting the next most senior minister or shifting gear altogether and passing the baton on to a younger, “relatively fresh person with energy and new ideas”.

Sinn F

éin question On the Sinn F

éin question put by retired Galway councillor Tom Costello, Burton repeated her view that it had questions to to answer about its nexus with the IRA.

White said he abhorred Sinn Féin’s association with violence but said the party should not be defined by Sinn Féin. He said that after an election he did not believe it realistic to ostracise them and put them in a corner.

Like any show on tour, there was the support act. And that was provided by the four TDs contesting the deputy leadership of the party.

There were a few common themes in the stump speeches. All spoke about taking the fight to the opposition, and taking on the far left, with Michael McCarthy saying Sinn Féin and others were “occupying the soft political space of protest while never telling us where they will find the money.”

Sean Sherlock emphasised the difference between the economy of a nation and its society. Waterford TD Ciara Conway spoke at length about the deep injustices and sense of shock exposed by the disclosures of the mother and baby home in Tuam.

Alan Kelly’s contribution was almost brutal in its realism, saying the past was over and though Labour members know what they have gone through, “people don’t care”.