Politics

Labour seeks alliance with Social Democrats and Greens

Burton to reach out to form parliamentary bloc with smaller parties

Acting Tánaiste Joan Burton at the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin for the 1916 commemorations last month. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times
Acting Tánaiste Joan Burton at the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin for the 1916 commemorations last month. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times
Fiach Kelly
Wed Apr 06 2016 - 14:47

Labour Party leader Joan Burton will attempt to form an alliance with the Social Democrats and the Green Party in the new Dáil.

It is understood Ms Burton wants to form a “progressive alliance” in the House, although it is not yet clear if she wants to bring such an alliance into government.

While some in Labour are considering re-entering government, it is understood the majority of the parliamentary party do not favour doing so. Brendan Howlin, seen as the frontrunner to replace Ms Burton as leader, spoke strongly against going back into government at a party meeting last week.

The Social Democrats have ruled themselves out of government, while Green Party leader Eamon Ryan withdrew from government talks with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

READ MORE

The Greens have two seats and it is understood they would favour entering government if other left of centre parties, such as the Social Democrats and Labour, did so too. Labour has seven seats at the Social Democrats have three.

A Labour source said of the proposed alliance that Ms Burton initially wanted to see “if there is an appetite for something like this, then identifying what its priorities should be”.

“(The) obvious next step is to explore how best those priorities could be delivered,” the source said. However, a separate party source said it is “99 per cent” likely Labour will choose to remain in Opposition.

The party will abstain on the Dáil vote for Enda Kenny as Taoiseach but will vote against all other candidates, on the basis that Fine Gael is the only party that has sent Labour a proposed programme for government.

Its “progressive alliance” will seek to build a parliamentary bloc that would enable the three parties to maximise the impact in the Dáil in speaking time and during Leaders’ Questions.

Labour believes it can find common ground with the Greens and Social Democrats on issues such as the minimum wage, the housing crisis, eradicating child poverty, reducing the cost of living, particularly childcare costs, and the need to cut carbon emissions.

This would be done through measures such as prioritising the use of renewable energy in all public buildings, providing a saving scheme for people to invest in warmer homes, and to permanently ban the use of fracking in Ireland. "