THE LABOUR Party and Sinn Féin will join forces in the Dáil this week when both parties will put forward a motion calling on the Government to make specific commitments to tackle the jobs crisis.
The joint motion will be debated during private members time in the Dáil over two days, commencing this evening.
The arrangement derives from the transfer pact struck by both parties for the Seanad elections in 2007 that resulted in Labour winning an additional Seanad seat, and Pearse Doherty of Sinn Féin becoming his party’s first senator.
Under the agreement, the Labour Party agreed to share a private members motion with Sinn Féin once a year, by tabling a joint motion. By dint of the fact that it has only four deputies, Sinn Féin is not entitled to table such motions in its own right.
However, the Labour Party spokesman said the agreement is a once-off that forms part of the transfer pact in the Seanad election. The motion and its wording were agreed directly by Sinn Féin Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and by Labour whip Emmet Stagg.
The spokesman said that no future or wider arrangement was envisaged between the parties. He said that the parties had opposite views on the Lisbon Treaty and there were other stark cultural and political gaps between them.
The motion criticises the lack of Government action in the face of job cuts by employers such as Dell, Waterford Crystal and SR Technics.
It calls for a number of actions including taking Eircom into public ownership to provide a suitable platform for investment in broadband; the establishment of a national investment bank; and the fast-tracking of business start-ups by creating one-stop enterprise centres.
“The motion we are moving with Sinn Féin provides a number of sensible and practical measures to make this happen,” said the Labour Party’s enterprise spokesman Willie Penrose.