EXTRA POWERS should be given to the Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore and taken away from the party's currently powerful National Executive Committee (NEC), according to a key internal reform report.
A draft report from the party's 21st Century Commission, set up last November, is to be debated by the commission's membership today, and at a further meeting next Saturday.
Under its recommendations, the NEC would be reduced in size and influence, while the party leader's role would be strengthened.
Meanwhile, it recommends that the party's traditional links with the trade union movement should be broken and that the unions should lose the block vote they enjoy at conferences.
Instead, the trade union membership would have to decide to "opt in" to an association with the party.
Under the draft proposals, the trade unions would fund a semi-independent think tank which would have a relationship with the party.
Also, the general secretary of the party would in future be appointed directly by the leader, rather than being required to be appointed by the NEC. The still unfinished document is due to be put before the NEC on October 23rd, and must be approved by this body before being put to a special party conference in Mullingar in November.
The far-reaching nature of some of the recommendations are likely to be strongly opposed by a significant number of current NEC members. The NEC includes the party leader, members of the parliamentary party, councillors, trade union representatives and other groupings within the party such as Labour Youth and Labour Women. Launching the 21st Century Commission last November, Mr Gilmore urged party delegates to embrace change: "This party that has led so much change in Ireland, must now have the courage to change itself," he told a conference in Waterford.
The commission, chaired by former government programme manager and accountant, Greg Sparks, has taken submissions from branches, unions and rank-and-file members.
The nearly complete report will also recommend that the party leader should meet constituency organisation representatives four times a year.
It is understood that the commission's document, which was circulated to members of the parliamentary Labour Party last week, is still held among a small number of party figures.
The party's often sclerotic branch structure should be overhauled, it recommends, partly by allowing people to be party members directly, rather than only through a branch. The recommendations also propose a greater focus on the need for fundraising, along with more effective on-the-ground political campaigning.
The commission's membership includes four members of the parliamentary Labour Party; TDs Joanna Tuffy and Róisín Shortall and senators Alan Kelly and Alex White.
The break in the link between the unions and the party would end an association that goes back all the way to the party's foundation in 1912. Currently, trade unions hold a 10 per cent block vote at the NEC and during party conference votes, although the leadership is decided by one-member, one-vote.
