Democratic Left's annual conference provided few surprises and little political excitement at the weekend. But the party leader, Mr De Rossa, and his parliamentary colleagues will be greatly cheered by the general feeling of comfort and satisfaction amongst members. The moderate economic approach pursued in Government by the most left wing of the Dail parties, in association with Fine Gael and the Labour Party, was broadly endorsed by delegates. And if party activists demanded that special emphasis and funding be given to breaking up the State's economic millstone of 100,000 long term unemployed in any new rainbow government, their opponents could only quibble about the means to be used, rather than the end to be achieved.
Mr De Rossa's keynote address concentrated on what he regarded as a growing consensus, as expressed in Partnership 2000, on the necessity for social solidarity and on the need to tackle poverty and all its causes and effects. Ireland was experiencing, and would continue to enjoy, rapid economic growth, he said, and it was vital that the fruits of prosperity were shared fairly and equitably. In that regard, democratic socialism had learned important lessons in its struggle to be a positive force and a catalyst for change. The most important of these was that democracy and pluralist politics were essential to a viable and effective government.
Democratic Left appears to have made the difficult transition from being an opposition style party to one of government; where rhetoric has to be abandoned in favour of real politik. In that context, Mr De Rossa asked his party to support future participation by the Army in Sfor - the United Nations mandated peace keeping force in Bosnia/Herzegovina even though it would operate under the regional command of NATO. It would not be, he assured them, the `thin end of the wedge' by which Ireland would be slipped into NATO by degrees. Many of the delegates were unenthusiastic about the development, but none of them protested or walked out.
On the North, Mr De Rossa was equally forthright in condemning both republican violence and unionist intransigence. A vote for Sinn Fein in the Northern Ireland elections, while the IRA continued its military campaign, was a vote for violence, he said. And Sinn Fein would only be allowed into all party talks if the IRA ended its campaign in an unequivocal manner. In the event of the political parties failing to reach agreement at the talks, he said, it might be necessary for the two governments to sponsor a referendum so that there should be no surrender to political deadlock and no concessions to political violence. For a small party on the eve of a general election, there was a refreshing amount of straight talking.