Jack O’Connor says Labour not making its case

The Labour Party is not making its case and can't very well expect people to stick with it if it is not making its case, the head of the country's largest trade union has said.

Speaking on Tuesday morning in response to The Irish Times poll finding showing support for the Labour Party had fallen to just 6 per cent , Siptu president Jack O'Connor said he believed there was an assumption that the current government was the same as a Fine Gael government or a Fine Gael government that was relying on the support of a few right-wing independents.

“That is utterly untrue and any analysis of the facts would demonstrate it to be untrue.”

Mr O’Connor said: “The Labour Party has a case to make and it is not making its case and it can’t very well expect people to stick with it if it is not making its case.”

He said it was fair to say that if the Labour people in the Government could speak frankly they would not agree with the troika agenda at all.

Mr O'Connor said social democrats across Europe were utterly opposed to this .

“And it does not withstand scrutiny any more. All the intellectual arguments that were advanced to support it have been exposed by what has happened.”

“That being said, the problem is we are stuck in this space and the consequences of not complying with it from the point of view of working people and the great majority of people in our society are probably many times worse.”

Mr O’Connor said polls were polls but there was obviously a great deal of disaffection among working people and large sections of society at the entire austerity agenda.