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AODHÁN Ó RÍORDÁIN has this morning launched his leadership campaign for the Labour Party.
The vacancy in the party leadership has come about after Brendan Howlin announced last week he was stepping down following the party’s failure to make gains in the general election.
Launching his campaign today in the community hall in Dublin’s Sheriff Street, Ó Ríordáin, a TD for Dublin Bay North, pledged to rebuild his party on the basis of traditional Labour values.
He said there was a need to focus on what Labour can deliver in the future, and to return to being the “campaigning heart of Irish politics”.
“We’ve had many setbacks in our long history, which have often led to calls to go ‘back to basics’. But, while we’re proud of our roots, we cannot afford to look backwards. We have to grow and develop if we’re to win back trust and confidence to be relevant into the future,” Ó Ríordáin said.
He said his leadership would deliver:
“As Labour leader, I will legislate to enshrine in law the right for all workers to be represented by a union for the purpose of collective bargaining,” Ó Riórdáin said.
“If this is deemed unconstitutional, either by the Attorney General or the Supreme Court, we will build a movement in support of a referendum to give the people the right to be represented by a trade union,” he said.
“This will demand hard work and courage, just like when we achieved marriage equality and repealed the eighth amendment. Labour will lead the argument with our colleagues in the trade union movement and we will win.”
Ó Ríordáin was a junior minister during the Fine Gael-Labour government of the previous decade and held briefs including equality and drugs policy.
Alan Kelly
Alan Kelly launched a leadership campaign earlier this week and Louth TD Ged Nash announced he will not be contesting the Labour leadership contest.
During his campaign launch earlier this week, Kelly said it was time for the Labour Party to “go back to basics”.
Kelly, a former Cabinet minister under the Fine Gael-Labour coalition from 2011, was most recently the party’s health spokesperson and was prominent in the last Dáil for his support of the victims of the CervicalCheck scandal.
“The party was founded to advance the interest of workers. Now it is time to go back to basics,” the Tipperary TD said.
“We must rebuild our party, take it back to the grassroots, cover every corner of the country in doing so and regenerate the trust we had with the people of Ireland that, no matter what, Labour puts the people first,” he said.
“There is a hard road ahead and it will take time, but the rebuilding of the party must revolve around putting workers and their families at the centre of political discourse.”
Labour members will vote on a new leader at the beginning of April.
With reporting by Rónán Duffy
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Never has the expression ‘two bald men fighting over a comb’ been more apt.
@SFAnkleTapper: why did Twitter suspend your account?
@Brian Madden: same reason journal deletes a fair comment
@Brian Madden: and why does it matter whether some third party blocked an account? If I blocked yours would it make your opinion and more or less valuable or any more right or wrong?
@The Risen: maybe the comb has sentimental value ..
@Brian Madden: Yep, banhammer on Twitter. Quite the achievement LOL!
Will they both come out and say Irish Water was wrong and should be scrapped. Also agree that water supplies should be protected against private ownership. This would go a long way to going back to basics.
@Brendan McDermott: I would genuinely love to know what the country thinks of the Irish water situation. Though I didn’t support the 3 taxes and how it was implemented, I do support taxing water use like electricity. I definitely know more people personally in favour of taxing it than are against it, though its hard to know how the country feels on the subject, as pro water charges people tend to be afraid to talk out on the subject. I’m 100% against privatisation though.
@gerald: take away the privatisation option, then push the eviromental purpose and it would be accepted. To me it is just another tax that goes into a big pot to to be waisted on consultants,building overpriced hospitals ect and very little going back to what the tax is actually meant to support.
He wants to build a party but not houses in Dublin
Would labor ever sell it’s principals again for a chance in Govt….? The inability to answer that question is why people will never trust them again…
@CJ Stewart: in fairness, all parties do that
@CJ Stewart: they have literally said they are not going into government.
Summed up in 4 words, not fit for purpose
Never forgiven or forgotten for how you abandoned your basic principles.
Labour will never be trusted again, not after crucifying their own voters when in government 2011-16
O’Riordan isn’t capable of running the party in line with “Traditional Labour Values”. He’s too woke and too busy trying to curry favour with the right groups.
@Adam Conroy: If only. He obviously belongs to the Pot’s As Bad As Smack school of right-wing politics
I can never tell the difference between him and Eamon Ryan
This is a lot like the cookie monster promising everyone he’s the best choice to mind the biscuit tin.
On your bike O’Riordan. No one has forgotten all the promises you broke or how you’ve been shafting working people for decades. You might as well just dissolve the party and all join FF at this point.
The traditional values of Labour were built on the ideas of Connoly and Larkin, both Socialists and staunch opponents of capitalism. Is O’Riordan trying to rewrite history now? We all know there are no socialists left in Labour and haven’t been for a very long time.
Is he still holding onto his teacher’s job or has he forfeited it.
@Dave Byrne: doubt it
@Dave Byrne: He might do better if he responded to progressive emails from his constituents !
Traditional working class labour voters have left for SF and similar, all that’s left now is the social issues woke liberalists who are too lazy to get involved with Soc Dem. as a party they have no future, electing Aodain will speed up their demise, Alan Kelly May offer a different voice or alternative but I doubt it.
Nice to see the Labour Party articulating the merits of “traditional values”. It’s okay for the Labour movement to indulge its traditional values, it seems, but it’s not okay for anyone else to do so!
Joke is over . Go away liebour .
You screwed a nation. Will never be forgotten.
I was on board with everything O Riordan said, right up to the point where you mentioned his ministry of drugs. Since marijuana shows no sign of being legalised, I’ll now dismiss him as yet another bigmouth conservative politician. He should be in FFG, or Renua, or Aontú, not challenging for the leadership of a tolerant centre-left party.
Not that it really matters who leads this party of has- beers but for all his faults I would prefer Kelly to this woke gobshote.
I hope they both lose badly. (If only)Two of the most out of touch politicians ever. .Labour is dead ,gone, brown bread ,flatlined etc etc
O’Riordan is just another woke virtue signalling PC clown. Labour going nowhere only into the dustbin of history.
The Soc Dems and SF have cut them in two at both ends and there is little left in the centre
have your say