A group of Labour Party members opposed to Government policy will meet in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin on Saturday to discuss an alternative programme.

The meeting is being convened by the Campaign for Labour Polices (CLP) and is open to all party members.

Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the group said that the party’s appalling electoral performance in the Meath East byelection must serve as a wake up call to the leadership.

“The call for better communications of the work of the Government is redundant, when it is the work of the Government that is the problem. The party leadership must listen to the people who voted for the party in the 2011 General Election and have now changed their minds about Labour,” he said.

Mr Dillon said his group was calling for the party leadership and backbench TDs to rally to an alternative programme focusing on the core policies which Labour TDs were elected to implement in 2011, such as an economic stimulus, increased taxation of the wealthy and the reversal of cuts which have hurt the most vulnerable.

“The future of the Labour Party and left wing politics in Ireland face being set back more than a generation if there is not an immediate change of direction. This issue will be the focus of debate at Saturday’s meeting,” he said.