Stephen Collins: Labour faces huge challenge as election looms

Eamon Gilmore’s decision to stand down at the next election points up the huge challenge facing the Labour Party as the contest looms ever closer.

Looked at in another light, however, it also highlights the genuine achievements of Labour in government, even if the former leader has received no gratitude from either his party or the public.

In a week when the folly of Greece’s Syriza administration became ever more obvious to the world, the Labour Party’s record in government here over the past four years provides a marked contrast in political style and substance.

There is no longer any argument about the fact that the Irish economy is recovering strongly. Unemployment is falling, living standards are rising, the public finances are under control and there is real hope for the future.

Contrast that with Greece, where the economy has gone backwards since Syriza took control at the beginning of the year. Even if Alexis Tsipras manages to agree a deal with his country’s creditors in the coming weeks, the damage done to Greece since he was first elected will not be easily repaired.

It is a long time since Neil Kinnock, then British Labour Party leader, pointed to the Trotskyist-controlled Liverpool city council as an example of what happens when politicians make impossible promises. “You end up in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.”

Whatever about some of their overblown rhetoric in Opposition, Gilmore and his Labour colleagues knuckled down and dealt realistically with the situation they faced on taking office in 2011. They played a central role in implementing the policies that underpinned the recovery, kept public services functioning, and broadly protected welfare payments.

Standing by the tough decisions that were needed in the face of relentless Opposition criticism and hostility from wide elements of the media took a lot of political courage and endurance.

On the evidence of last year’s local and European elections, and most opinion polls, that courage is going to take a big toll on Labour when the general election comes around. But then again, one of the truisms of politics is that the expected never happens.

General elections create a dynamic all of their own when voters have to balance their grievances against the hard-headed choice of which party offers them a better and more secure future.

For instance, Gilmore was the dominant figure on the Opposition benches for most of the last Dáil. But in the final run-in to the election, the public mood changed when voters had to decide who was best fitted for government.

Next time around Labour will be coming from the directly opposite position. Still, it has every chance of being able to improve on its current poll standing if it plays its cards right.

Record ownership

One wise decision the party has already taken is to claim ownership of the Government’s record rather than trying to disown large parts of it. In the past, the party was always tempted to point up its role in protecting the vulnerable while simultaneously decrying key economic decisions required to keep public finances in check.

Labour is not making the same mistake this time and is claiming full credit for the decisions that led to the recovery. In its final year in office, it is attempting to ensure that the benefits of the recovery are getting to as many people as possible.

The party played a key role in ensuring that reductions in the burden of the Universal Social Charge on middle- income earners took precedence over a cut in the higher rate of tax.

Delivering a pay rise for public sector workers on the eve of the election could be regarded as a more dubious and cynical ploy.

However, given that it is six years since pay cuts for public servants were introduced, something had to give.

“The risk to the public finances from doing nothing was greater than negotiating an acceptable deal,” said one Government source, who pointed to the potential damage to the recovery that could have been caused by widespread industrial action by public servants.

He suggested that Fine Gael also stood to benefit equally from an affordable resolution of the issue.

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has publicly conceded that the Government is a better one for having Labour as part of it because it has a better feel for certain social issues than Fine Gael.

Joint manifesto

The Coalition parties will go into the election seeking to be returned as a government. At the moment, it doesn’t appear that it will involve a joint election manifesto, as advocated by party elders Frank Flannery and Brendan Halligan, although there are strong arguments for such a course.

One way or another, the Coalition parties will be tied together in the campaign. That could prove vital in terms of salvaging as many Labour seats as possible with the help of strong transfers from Fine Gael.

An even stronger weapon in Labour’s favour could be the election spotlight on the composition of any alternative government. Sinn Féin, the Trotskyist hard left and even Shane Ross have all hitched their star to the Syriza banner.

Whatever has happened to Greece by the time of the Irish election, there will be no argument about which country has handled its crisis better. Labour will have plenty of ammunition to use against its rivals. Getting the voters to draw the obvious conclusions will be the challenge.