Pat Rabbitte: ‘you’re not going to get a broad left alliance’

Pat Leahy sits down with former Labour leader and minister Rabbitte

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Former minister for communications Pat Rabbitte. Photograph:  Eric Luke / The Irish Times.
Former minister for communications Pat Rabbitte. Photograph: Eric Luke / The Irish Times.

Last week Pat Leahy sat down with former Labour leader Pat Rabbitte for a podcast interview about his life in politics.

Rabbitte is now retired but for decades he was one of the most recognisable faces and voices of centre-left politics in Ireland.

As a minister in the 2011 Fine Gael-Labour coalition, he witnessed first hand the events explored in our recent mini-series on the subject.

He talks about the decisions he made as party leader and as a minister, as well as his formative years in the west of Ireland and 1960s America, and what he thinks of today’s splintered centre-left.

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