The four Democratic Left TDs will lose £250,000 in State funding over the next two years by virtue of the planned merger with the Labour Party, details of which were confirmed last night.
Department of Finance sources have confirmed that the party leader's and parliamentary allowances to DL, payable under the Electoral Act, will disappear as soon as the party integrates with Labour. Despite the financial loss, the Labour Party is to employ and pay the three existing Democratic Left staff members at their current salary levels or higher, according to the agreement which was published last night.
The Labour Party will not gain any allowances by virtue of the four new TDs joining the party. Nor will it receive the benefits forgone, because the four DL TDs were not elected as Labour deputies in the last general election.
Both the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, and the Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, hailed the agreement last night as an "historic" deal which would hasten the creation of a left-led government. The agreement states that the merger is but a first step towards the creation of "a radical, participatory political movement in Ireland which will aim to lead a government of reform."
The party also hopes that a number of public representatives from other parties will now join the merged Labour Party. The agreement explicitly invites "all those who share our values and outlook to join with us to build the first political formation of the 21st century."
Mr De Rossa also announced that he would be a candidate in next June's European Parliament election and would not contest his Dublin North West constituency again, whatever the result in June.
This resolves the most difficult organisational issue and leaves the sitting Labour TD, Ms Roisin Shortall, free to contest the now three-seat constituency as the sole candidate.
It is likely to create another internal party headache, however, in the shape of rivalry between Mr De Rossa and the sitting Labour MEP, Ms Bernie Malone. Mr De Rossa insisted last night that the party could win two seats in the Dublin constituency. Should Mr De Rossa fail to be elected to the European Parliament, he could contest the new three-seat Dublin Mid West constituency.
The text of the agreement confirms that Mr De Rossa will become party president for at least two years until a party conference in 2001. During this period the party will have a shared leadership team to manage the merger process and deal with disputes. This group will consist of Mr Quinn, Mr De Rossa, the Labour deputy leader, Mr Brendan Howlin, its chief whip, Mr Emmet Stagg, and another DL nominee.
The Socialist Party deputy, Mr Joe Higgins, responded to the merger by saying his party would now become the real political opposition on the left. He predicted his party would win a number of local authority seats in next June's elections.
The idea that Labour would be a dramatic new growing force on the left was pure fiction, Mr Higgins said. The merger was simply a strategy for coalition.
"The reality is that neither the Labour Party nor Democratic Left have challenged the market and those who manipulate the market for super profits, as we have seen in the housing market."
The Sinn Fein President, Mr Gerry Adams, said last night that the pending merger highlighted the need for the building of "a genuine republican left alternative, based on the Connolly tradition".
`Few will mourn the passing of Democratic Left," he said. "It has the unique distinction of dissolving ever party formation which it has passed through in its long period of transition from radical republicanism to conservatism."