Eamon Gilmore has today called on his party to work toward leading a new government during the annual Labour Party James Connolly Commemoration.
During his speech at Arbour Hill, Dublin, the Labour leader said now was the time for Labour to fulfill the legacy of Connolly.
¿We live in a country, where the ideals of Connolly, and of the Proclamation, have been again betrayed,¿ he said.
¿Our country has been brought low, by the untrammeled greed and excess of the powerful few. Those who lectured others on the virtues of unregulated speculation, have brought about a calamity not seen since the 1930s.¿
¿They put themselves before their country. The cost of their excess to be borne by others.¿
Mr Gilmore said where once Labour saw its duty to stand aside, ¿our duty now is to step forward¿.
¿Now is the time for Labour. Now is the time, to spare no effort to renew our country, to make no apology for our values,¿ he told the commemoration attendees.
¿To do what is needed today, to justify the sacrifice of Connolly and his compatriots, 93 years ago. The next couple of weeks are crucial to that mission. Our date with history is 19 days from now on June 5th.¿
¿Our duty now is to leave here today and to spare no effort for the next 19 days to raise Labour to new heights. To build the platform from which we can challenge to lead a new Government. That is how we will commemorate Connolly.¿
Speaking at the event, Siptu general president Jack O¿Connor said Labour was the only alternative to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
"Tragically, the noble ideal of the national interest has all too often in the subsequent history of this country been confused with the interests of the better off," he said.
"This interpretation of the national interest as synonymous with the interests of the wealthy has characterised the approach of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to public policy throughout virtually the entire history of the State."
"Only the Labour Party, and other parties of the left in Ireland, offer the real alternative of the social market economy, which has been so successful in the countries of Northern and Central Europe," the Siptu leader said.
Connolly co-founded the Labour Party with James Larkin in 1912. Following his role in the Easter Rising, he was executed in Kilmainham Jail on May 12th, 1916, and is buried in Arbour Hill.
