LABOUR IS to field 65 candidates in the next general election with a view to leading the next government, party leader Eamon Gilmore said yesterday.
Announcing the appointment of Ruairí Quinn as director of elections, Mr Gilmore said Ireland needed “a fresh start with a new government”.
The Labour leader was speaking at the end of a two-day meeting of his parliamentary party in Roscommon where election strategy and planning for the next Dáil term were discussed, along with issues related to banking, job creation and the health service.
“It is our intention at the moment to stand 65 candidates in the general election, each of whom will be standing to win. That is sufficient to make Labour the largest party in the next Dáil and to lead the next government.”
He believed the events surrounding the Taoiseach’s controversial radio interview had increased the likelihood of an early dissolution of the Dáil.
“I think there is a momentum building up in the country; it has been building for some time. The strategy that Fianna Fáil appeared to have adopted – to sit tight, serve out the time, hope that things would turn around, and that there would be an electoral consequence of that – I think the public are just intolerant of that and are not prepared to allow that to happen.
“People want the Government out of office, and what we’re seeing over the last couple of days is clearly that Fianna Fáil TDs, particularly backbenchers, are getting that message.”
He said the process of choosing candidates was well under way. “We have selections done at the moment in about a third of the constituencies; they’re well under way in another third; and they’re about to start in the remainder of them.”
The Dáil consists of 166 seats, including the ceann comhairle who is automatically re-elected.
“If we won 65 seats, that leaves 100 for everybody else, and it would make Labour the largest party in the Dáil. That’s the basis on which we’re contesting this election; is to be the largest party and to lead the next government.”
He had a message for any discontented Fianna Fáil backbenchers. “They should advise their Government colleagues and Ministers, and in particular the Taoiseach, to dissolve the Dáil and hold a general election, that’s what the people of the country want.”
He again ruled out coalition with Fianna Fáil, even under a different leader, and said a change of leadership would not be credible.
“I don’t think it is either going to resolve the electoral fortunes of Fianna Fáil nor is it going to resolve the economic and confidence problems that this country has now. Fianna Fáil have got the country into this mess. There is such a thing as collective responsibility, and all of the Ministers who have been around the Cabinet table when critical decisions were made, like, for example, the decision to provide a blanket guarantee to the banking system, have to take collective responsibility for that. It is not just a question of what is happening in the political world, you look at what has been happening throughout the morning, for example, in relation to our cost of borrowing.
“We have to restore confidence, both within the country, in the economy and in the way the country is being run and, secondly, we have to restore confidence outside the country in the country itself. And the only way that that is going to be done is by the holding of a general election.
“The sooner we have a general election, a clearing of the air, an opportunity given to the people to decide who should be elected to the Dáil and who should be governing the country and get a fresh start with a new government, the better for all of us.”