Northern Ireland: Delegates backed a motion to establish the Labour Party organisation throughout Northern Ireland - despite the opposition of its sister party, the SDLP.
However, the Labour leadership is unlikely to move to put the decision into speedy effect since the motion passed by the Killarney conference will now go before the incoming National Executive Council.
The party also adopted a motion, proposed by the leadership, allowing the establishment of "support groups" in Northern Ireland.
These would behave as party branches but would be involved in political activity in this State only, and not in Northern Ireland.
The party's National Executive Council will now discuss how to proceed in the light of both motions.
During a debate on the issue, former Sligo/Leitrim TD Mr Declan Bree said that the SDLP had "never struck me as a socialist party".
"Many of its members have more in common with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
"Nevertheless, it must be recognised that they have played a significant and courageous role in the North, particularly in John Hume's development of the peace process," said Mr Bree, who served in the Dáil between 1992 and 1997.
Labour would attract "left-wing members of the SDLP" if it became established in Northern Ireland, he said.
Supporting the motion, his constituency colleague, Mr John Dunne, said Northern voters were currently offered "blatantly sectarian" choices when they went to cast their vote.
Unionist voters could opt for the "right-wing, middle-class Ulster Unionist Party, the fundamentalist Democratic Unionist Party or militaristic fringe loyalist parties", he said.
Nationalist voters, on the other hand, were faced with the SDLP, which "seems to have deleted the word 'Labour' from its name", or "a gang of sectarian bigots" in Sinn Féin.