One topic sure to be on everyone's lips at the Labour Party conference in City Hall Cork this weekend is Ray Kavanagh's Spring, Summer and Fall, which tells the story of the party while he was general secretary, from 1986 to 1999.
The Dick Spring faction and Ruair∅ Quinn's new Labour are so cross about some of the revelations that they both rubbish it and refuse to comment at the same time. Old Labour are happier. They feel that the power and absence of consultation exercised by Fergus Finlay, Pat Magner and others close to Spring is at last exposed. They also believe the assertion that the merger with Democratic Left was pushed through without thought of the consequences is well worth telling.
The anti-Kavanagh group question many of the stories. Indeed one of the big episodes, that Spring, Finlay and Magner sought the resignation of junior Minister Emmet Stagg in 1993 after he was questioned by Garda∅ in the Phoenix Park is denied by the party. Stagg himself refuses to comment and is said to be displeased it has all been dragged up again.
The launch last Monday was attended by only three deputies - Tommy Broughan, Mary Upton and Rois∅n Shortall - Senators Joe Costello and Mary Henry, Cllr Eithne FitzGerald, and former MEPs Eileen Desmond and Bernie Malone also attended. Neither Quinn nor the four former DL deputies whose entry into the party is understood to be still causing problems were seen.
Kavanagh, who says he wrote the book for the members rather than the bigwigs, will be at the conference as a delegate from the Ballsbridge branch, which has a motion calling for more vigorous opposition. What's more, he'll be signing copies of his book at Easons in Cork today.