Rebuilding a strong sense of community in an age of individualism, was the broad mission statement proposed by Mr Ruairi Quinn at the Labour Party's biannual conference in Tralee at the weekend. The future was all about caring and sharing the fruits of a rapidly growing economy; of investment in health, education, housing and infrastructure; of Constitutional reform and State-funded politics. And delegates from the newly merged parties responded positively as they got to know one another and found their traditional opponents did not come equipped with horns.
What was described as the "bedding-down process" of the two parties - Democratic Left and Labour - was probably the most important aspect of the weekend. For while constituency rivalries and personality conflicts continued to generate tension, there was evidence of a concerted effort by most politicians and delegates to make the exercise work; to develop their combined strength and to get to know their new colleagues in advance of the elections.
The promise to make the political whole equal to more than the sum of the parts has still to be delivered. For while the new Labour Party gained a couple of points in a recent "Irish Times/MRBI" opinion poll, that had more to do with the findings of judicial tribunals than with the synergies of the new political structure. That failure to motivate the broad electorate and to generate a sense of imminent change was evident in Tralee where, in spite of the merger, delegate numbers were down on two years ago when the party was preparing to fight a general election in association with Fine Gael and Democratic Left.
Mr Quinn went some way towards dispelling that sense of ennui during his televised address on Saturday night when he offered the party a programme of Constitutional reform that would promote basic rights to food, shelter, health and education for all citizens. Rebuilding a strong sense of community through the creation of a more equal and inclusive society was a key objective. Labour, he declared, was the party of the public good.
Cleaning up politics in the aftermath of the Haughey revelations was another strong theme. The perception that money meant access to decision-making was killing politics, Mr Quinn declared.
That was why the financial link between business and politics had to go. That was why the Labour Party would introduce legislation banning all corporate donations and limiting personal donations to £500. Political parties should be funded by the State. If politics and public life was to regain respect, it had to be seen to be clean, he said.
The other `big idea' involved making the National Treasury Management Agency responsible for co-ordinating the funding of a ten-year, £70 billion infrastructural programme involving transport, water, sewage and other facilities. Public/private partnerships would be encouraged to develop the needed infrastructure which could be part-funded through the use of pension funds and receipts from the sale of State assets.
In general terms, the party leadership will be pleased by the way things went in Tralee. Having lost half its Dail seats in the 1997 general election and performed below par in the later presidential election, it began to claw its way back under the leadership of Mr Quinn last year when it won two important by-elections. The European and local elections will test the mettle and the resilience of new Labour.