Labour's president Michael D Higgins has called on the party to base its next election campaign not simply on "changing the managers of the system", but on the demand for a return to values of equality and justice.
In the opening address to the Labour conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, last night, Mr Higgins said Labour must go beyond critiques of individual government actions and argue for an abandonment of the socially destructive values fostered by "a decade of right-of-centre Government".
That decade, he said, had transformed the image of Ireland into one based on greed, rampant consumerism and the vulgar flaunting of wealth. "The test for this conference then, and beyond it, is to lay down bedrock alternatives of policy," he said. "That, not just changing the managers, must be our project."
Many who criticised this Government pointed to the waste in resources on "egotistically driven projects" such as e-voting, while provision for health, education, transport and housing were neglected. "The main issues are, however, I suggest not simply managerial. I suggest that they are moral, ethical, political and social."
The image that had been created of Ireland by this decade of right-of-centre government was "not one of kindness or concern.
"The image is of a greedy country consumed in its consumption, one where, as the loudest mouth of the present Government has put it, 'inequality in society is necessary as a spur to achievement'.
"The radical individual acquisitive greed that is at the centre of our present Government's thinking has led to their trumpeting, from the highest level, a version of Ireland as gushing, brash, manipulative, speculative, ostentatious and grossly vulgar in its flaunting of wealth. "It strikes at the very basis of responsible and inclusive citizenship."
Mr Higgins said this culture led to the promotion of the interests of the individual and involved "an abandonment of a politics that might be built on what transcends the self". This challenged politics itself "because the capacity to go beyond oneself, towards others, to take their needs and lives into account, is the prerequisite of all human solidarity and the viability of society. It is the only real definition of citizenship."
Labour must build "a real Republic of inclusive, generous, welcoming and creative citizenship. Let us put an end to right-wing misery."