Labour made mistakes in office, Brendan Howlin admits

Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin has conceded the party made mistakes in office, but said the current Government was interested in power and nothing else.

Speaking to the Parliamentary Labour Party at its think-in yesterday, Mr Howlin said the Government was leading “a do-nothing Dáil”.

“If [it] survives at all, these will be known as the lost years,” said Mr Howlin.

“Politics is about the resolution of differences in a peaceful and civilised manner – not pretending they don’t exist.”

In the 1990s and again in 2011, Labour entered government when the country was in chaos, but twice it left office when the country had returned to economic growth.

“Had Sinn Féin or the anarchists entered government in 2011 Ireland would now have no economy to speak of. We wouldn’t have been talking about health and housing at the election just gone.

“We’d have been talking about our economic implosion, the collapse in foreign direct investment, soaring joblessness and unimaginable hardship. There would have been no debate about the scale of the recovery because things would still be getting worse.”

Liberal society

For 40 years Labour has been the parliamentary vanguard of change which has seen Ireland transformed from a narrow intolerant society to a more pluralist and liberal society.

“There are many in Ireland who only see problems as opportunities for political gain. They will always have a certain advantage over those of us that seek to solve such problems.”

Labour’s election manifesto was principled and progressive and would have helped to build a fair society: “But, frankly, I think many Irish people had stopped listening to Labour.

“Let’s be honest enough to recognise why. By the time the election came around, we faced an enormous challenge in having any of our messages heard.

“I’ve said this before – and I will continue to say it – we recognise that we made plenty of mistakes along the way; that there is a gap between what people heard us say and what they saw us do.” Mr Howlin said this was partly because governing during a crisis was messy and distracting and stopped the party from being clear about some of the things it had achieved.

“But partly also because we made some particularly high-profile promises in areas such as third-level fees. And we didn’t always deliver.

“We are rightly proud of the many things we did in office. But we’re also honest enough to recognise that we didn’t get everything right.”