Labour's new leader must win back support the party has lost to Sinn Fein and the Greens, writes Miriam Donohoe.
The new Labour Party leader faces the mammoth task of rebuilding a party seriously damaged after the general election. The Labour vote is now under attack from two sides, Sinn Féin and the Green Party. The real challenge for the new leader is to work out a strategy to win back the core support lost to both those growing parties.
While Labour managed to hold its own in terms of seats during the election, its failure to make any gains was a major setback. Senior party figures had confidently predicted it would pick up eight or 10 seats at the beginning of the campaign. That figure would have been revised upwards if there had been any inkling of the collapse of Fine Gael.
Labour is seen by many of its old supporters now as too middle-class and it rarely managed to land a punch on the government in the last Dáil. "The party also lacked the great backroom team that Dick Spring enjoyed, with the brains of the likes of Fergus Finlay," a party source said.
"The new leader will have to identify the market of the Labour Party and will have to target that market in a focused way."
He or she will also have to unite the party still divided after the merger with Democratic Left and identify where Labour stands on the political spectrum.
But most important for Labour is that it wins back some of its core support lost to Sinn Féin and the Greens. It also needs an injection of new blood, having failed to have any new TDs elected in May.
"It will be an uphill struggle. In a sense, Labour is in a worse position that Fine Gael, which hit rock bottom and couldn't fall any further. Labour, on the other hand, is politically in neutral gear and simply hasn't delivered, and there is still that divide between old Labour and the new merged party," according to the party source.
Labour lost votes in urban working-class areas to an extent that has terrified many within the party. Sinn Féin took seats from it in Louth and North Kerry. It also failed to win a seat the party had targeted in Dublin South Central, leaving two Labour candidates, Eric Byrne and Mary Upton, fighting it out for the last seat. The new leader faces a struggle to keep Sinn Féin from hoovering up their seats in the future. Sinn Féin is getting a strong foothold in disadvantaged areas of Dublin.
Labour is also being squeezed from another side. It lost out to the Green Party in four constituencies that it regarded as natural territory to gain seats - Dún Laoghaire, Dublin Mid West, Dublin South and Cork South Central. Former ministers Niamh Bhreathnach and Eithne FitzGerald failed to take seats.
The threat of the Independents cannot be ignored either, with Labour's Derek McDowell losing a seat to Finian McGrath in Dublin North Central.
Most of the new Independents have been elected on public service issues such as health, arguing for policies similar to those of the Labour Party. It is clear that Labour's campaign message failed to excite.
The tone and feel of its campaign appeared profoundly middle-class to many working-class voters.
Labour should be in a strong position to lead the assembling of a left-of-centre alternative to Fianna Fáil.
As Eamon Gilmore wrote in The Irish Times the week after the general election, Labour will need to engage more with single-issue activism in local communities and needs to have the concerns of the young on the agenda.
It will be interesting to see if the new leader opts for another major reshuffle in a bid to energise the Opposition benches. A strong front bench will be essential.