THE long term unemployed moved to the top of Democratic Left's political agenda in advance of the general election campaign when delegates met at the party's annual conference in Dun Laoghaire at the weekend.
While Mr Proinsias De Rossa sang off a carefully crafted hymn sheet - designed to nurture the cohesion and solidarity of the three parties in Government - debate on Democratic Left's participation in any new government was dominated by the need for a radical, State funded approach to long term unemployment.
Mr Eric Byrne led the charge on the issue. As one of the most out spoken Rainbow sceptics within the party, his support for a new arrangement with Fine Gael and the Labour Party depended on a programme of action to counter deprivation and, in particular, urban deprivation.
Long term unemployment, he said, was a major contributory factor to a society where 500,000 people didn't have adequate heating or a decent daily meal; it encouraged drug addiction and the breakdown of society.
The "liberal agenda" had been delivered on by the Government, he said, and it was time to start delivering on a new "social agenda". The State should step in because the so called "free market" had failed the people.
Ms Kathleen Lynch was equally determined. She wanted a "radical, interventionist approach by the State" to help the 100,000 long term unemployed.
Mr Pat Rabbitte, from the rarefied atmosphere of Cabinet, was more circumspect. The party had helped to create a net 130,000 new jobs in 2 1/2 years and had launched an anti poverty strategy only last week, But they were in a Coalition Government and it wasn't always sweetness and light. At times, one had to bite one's lip. But there was an ease of relationship and a mutual respect between the parties and "each one knew what the other's price was".
The party's director of elections, Mr Pat Brady, promised Democratic Left would run an independent election campaign which would focus on making Ireland "a fair, safe society, where everybody shares in the wealth that is generated". He predicted the party would win 10 seats.
The change was startling. Two years ago, at its annual conference in Liberty Hall, the party was on the ropes; morale at rockbottom. It was a question of losing, rather than winning, seats. The few delegates that turned up then were not impressed by ministerial positions; they wanted to know what was being done about water charges and jobs, and they were not impressed by the replies.
At the weekend you could almost detect a purr in the hall. And any reference to the abolition of water charges brought automatic applause.
As the party's three Ministers of State enumerated the Government's successes, delegates were infused with a comfortable, feelgood factor. The tendency towards complacency was so great that a new recruit, Ms Joan McGinley, warned that Ministers might have to "unlearn" some of the negative lessons they had absorbed in Government. They had to listen, she said, to the people who formed the base of the party.
Mr De Rossa sat back and let them at it. He was confident of delegates' support when the time came to vote on joining with Fine Gael and the Labour Party in another government. The vote, when it came, was unanimous.
His party leader's address contrasted the poor performance of Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats when they had shared government in 1989-92 with the present Government. And he posed the choice between the "stable, responsible and progressive approach of this Government ... with its commitment to balanced social and economic progress and "an inherently unstable Fianna Fail Progressive Democrat government of right wing economics committed to selfish individualism rather than social solidarity".
Mr Dc Rossa's speech wasn't, to quote Mr Rabbitte, all sweetness and light. For a party in Government, the thorny issue of neutrality was causing pain. The party, he told delegates, favoured a positive military neutrality, avoiding membership of NATO, the WEU and the Partnership for Peace. Only under the auspices of the UN should Ireland commit its military forces in the cause of peacekeeping. The delegates applauded him.
And then Mr De Rossa went on to talk about the challenge of participating in Sfor the Stabilisation Force for Bosnia and Herzegovina - which operates under the authority of the UN Security Council but with command delegated to NATO. This would place Irish troops under NATO command for the first time, along with contingents from 33 other NATO and nonNATO countries, including neutrals and nonaligned countries.
He did not think they would be compromised by participating in Sfor. And he would not tolerate using Sfor as a means of slipping the State into NATO by degrees. This was a test for Democratic Left, he said. They had shown themselves capable of courageous decisions by taking on the responsibility of government. And they should not fail the Bosnian people when they needed help to make peace instead of war.
There was scattered applause for Mr De Rossa's appeal. But many of the delegates who had enthusiastically supported his restatement of the party's traditional position remained silent. For the moment, at least, they were prepared to accept the new departure.
Elsewhere, the Progressive Democrats' Ms Mary Harney and Mr Michael McDowell figured as the demons of the right. Just as Fianna Fail had devoted itself to any orgy of Labour Party/Dick Spring bashing at its ardfheis, Democratic Left got stuck into the PDs.
It was fairly predictable stuff. But it went down a treat at the most successful conference Democratic Left has held in three years.