Sir, – There has been much talk about the upcoming leadership election for the Labour Party to the effect that the party needs to “rediscover its values” and a “sense of direction” to bring some “reforming zeal” to the debate and the like.
What Labour needs more than anything else is clarity.
Ask someone down at the dole office what they feel about the difference between democratic socialism and social democracy and you’ll get a shrug (at best). These issues don’t matter to ordinary people. What matters are jobs, affordable housing, healthcare and schooling.
What Labour needs to do is to set clear goals and a pathway to these goals that goes beyond the usual five-year electoral cycle. Nobody expects that in five years joblessness will have disappeared, but what about in 10 years?
Let’s leave the waffle at the door and set some clear goals that everyone can understand. Free healthcare for all. Affordable housing for all. No child having to be schooled in a leaky prefab. There are many more, but let’s be clear in our language.
Let’s have, for example, free childcare for all within 10 years.
First step: increase the affordability of childcare under the current system through greater tax relief and/or subsidies.
Second step: establish a State body with a mandate to provide free childcare to all who require it.
Third step: build the required number of creches to provide childcare for our population. It should not be difficult; after all the State already provides free childcare for those over-four in our schools. Adding a few more years to this is easily achievable.
Do the same with employment, with schooling and so fourth. Clear medium-term goals and a clear path to these goals. This then can be the benchmark by which the party judges whether or not coalition is worthwhile. It is also the only way the party will regain the trust of voters. – Yours, etc,
NOEL HOGAN,
Ballymakenny Road,
Drogheda,
Co Louth.