Party president's address: Labour Party president Michael D Higgins has urged his party to fight the next election proposing a fundamental change in values in society, rather than simply offering to "change the managers" of the present system.
He insisted that the public was open to considering a more ethical view of society than "the radical acquisitive greed that is at the centre of our present Government's thinking". A left-of-centre government would have to have "a new discourse for times it must make different".
Labour had to insist "on a return of values to policies" and must make the debate about values central to the election campaign.
"The campaign cannot simply be about changing the managers of a system that is exploitative, unfair, unaccountable for the most part, dismissive of ethics and by any standards of public provision, immoral.
"We must invite the public to reject what the extreme individualism of the right has done, the destruction of the social that continues and that promises to blight future generations.
"Any party with which we might co-operate, in or out of Government, must realise that there are bedrock values upon which Labour will not compromise."
He said the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat Government's approach had resulted in people thinking of themselves as "consumers rather than citizens".
The concept of public service was being destroyed and our 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".
He said the economy was now analysed as if it were separate from society and people were expected to serve the economy. "Now it is a disloyal and near traitorous act not to work endlessly. You are letting the economy down if you retire at 70. Our society is under pressure for time. Voluntarism is declining. There is little time for community. Time previously spent with neighbours is spent in traffic jams.
"We earn more, but everything costs even more. Indirect taxes and charges mask the true cost of living. The relationship between the generations is fundamentally changed with care of the elderly, for example, now being discussed almost entirely in terms of institutional provision."
He cited as an example of the dominance of narrow economic aims what had happened to the EU's so-called Lisbon Agenda. While that agenda made twin commitments to both competition and social cohesion, "only competition is acknowledged by those who feel they can impose a neo-liberal model in every circumstance at home and abroad".
This emphasis on economic goals and the discarding of social aims led to "an extended and stressful working life from which the basic guarantees won by generations of struggle have been stripped".
"In the name of labour market flexibility, new forms of exploitation emerge, often directed at the most vulnerable of employees, in particular migrant workers. All this in a country that calls itself a republic."
He said people who worked for reasons other than personal advancement, "far from being appreciated for the work they do for citizens in general, are reviled and abused". The concept of public service was being destroyed.
The test for Labour and the political left was whether it could make the debate about the values upon which society was based a central part of its election campaign.
"What is needed is a return to questioning the inevitabilities by which we live."