Enjoyed Government with Fianna Fáil

Labour's Brendan Howlin failed in two leadership bids and is opposed to a pre-election pact with Fine Gael. But he's lost none of his enthusiasm for politics or for his party, he tells Katie Hannon

Brendan Howlin carries himself with the purposeful air of a man who is running a little late for a very important engagement.

This aura of ambitious intent is not a recent affectation. It may have been what prompted a seasoned Labour Party colleague to mark him out for the big time way back when he was still a raw, young senator.

He tells the story of an encounter with a veteran Labour councillor in his early days in Leinster House. He had apparently impressed this councillor with his performance at some political meeting.

"I always remember what he said to me. He said: 'if you were a bit bigger, you could be leader of the Labour Party'."

The stature issue aside, Howlin has attempted to fulfil that early promise not once, but twice. He insists that his lack of success in two leadership bids has not dented his enthusiasm for the party he was born and bred into.

As for that backhanded compliment, he says that he took it in good heart. "I think the way to survive in politics is the same as the way to survive in life. You have to be self-deprecating when you can. I mean, we are what we are."

Christened Brendan after his father's close friend, Brendan Corish, Howlin was the youngest of an intensely-political Wexford clan.

"I'm the baby but interestingly, in terms of politics, my father was a local councillor, my uncle was a local councillor and now my brother is a local councillor. The women of the family were certainly strong debaters and advocates of politics as well, so nobody escaped from it."

When Howlin returned from St Pat's teacher training college to teach in Wexford, nuclear power was coming to the county. "The trade union movement were in favour, the employers were in favour, the people of Wexford were in favour. They were presented with this modern technology that was going to transform Wexford with jobs. I remember going to a very interesting presentation by a small group of concerned individuals, the Nuclear Safety Association, and from that, we said we'd better do something about it. A large movement built around that and that made me an activist."

The family connection saw him inevitably sucked into the Corish machine so that, by the general election of 1981, he was director of elections for his namesake.

He didn't know then that it was going to be Corish's last election. "When another election occurred within six months, Brendan announced to the constituency that he wouldn't be a candidate for the first time in 38 years so it threw us into some disarray.

"I was asked by some to be the new face at that stage, although I had never stood for anything, but in any event I didn't contest that convention and we felt that Brendan's brother was the best bet at holding on. Des Corish ran, was not elected and this was a great blow to us. We had lost our seat in Wexford for the first time since the foundation of the State."

Fortuitously for Howlin, these were turbulent times. When a third election was called within six months he was selected as the candidate.

He didn't get elected but came close enough to be appointed to the Senate.

After four years in the Upper House, Howlin ran again in the '87 election. "I was Mayor of Wexford and it gave me a profile and helped counter the adverse winds that were blowing against Labour sails in that election. I managed to get elected and I've been re-elected ever since."

He recalls his early years as a TD as a thrilling period. "It was very exciting because you were in a struggle to hold on to your vision of how the party should be and it energised the party. Just from an outside prospective, we were a party that couldn't run our own affairs so how could we run the nation's affairs. But, at least it was a time of great energy and thought, and people were battling over ideas."

Howlin reveals that he first thought of taking on a leadership role within the party way back when Barry Desmond's departure for Brussels left a vacancy for deputy leader.

"I was very close to Dick Spring. I thought I would throw my hat into the ring at that stage and sound out people. I spoke to Ruairi Quinn about it and he was to contest it. I felt on balance that he had the experience to merit that and I didn't contest it but, I mean certainly the thought process came into my mind at that stage and I was encouraged."

Dick Spring's retirement did not come as a surprise to him. "He had been leader for a very long period, one of the longest serving leaders in the House at the time. I think he had done his bit and brought the party as far as he could. He always said to me: 'the day that the posse comes to tell me my days are numbered, they'll find a note on my desk: 'gone golfing in Ballybunion''.

"Then once he did resign, I had to consider my position. It didn't take too long to decide that I should contest."

He says that contest, against Ruairi Quinn, "was conducted under ground rules (Queensbury) we agreed and, by and large, they were lived up to."

But the Queensbury rules were breached when an opinion poll emerged on the Monday before the election that gave Quinn the edge. Howlin admits that he was "annoyed". He says that Quinn rang him to apologise but that's all he'll say about the incident.

"I won't go into that. I don't think that there was any particular, malicious move by Ruairi in relation to that. I think there was a feeling that the opinion poll purported to suggest that Ruairi was more popular with the electorate than I would have been. That was Ruairi's honest view and he wanted that manifested I suppose. I was very annoyed at the time but subsequently I had an extraordinarily good working relationship with Ruairi.

"I regarded him then, and do still, as a friend, and I think the management and leadership of the party during Ruairi's time was one that was very open to my influence and I very much appreciated that."

He says he tried to dissuade Quinn from resigning the leadership a few months after the 2002 general election.

"Basically the dust had just settled on the election. I was anxious that it wouldn't be perceived as a Labour defeat because the election wasn't a Labour defeat and I put that to Ruairi. Anyway, he had made up his mind to go and he went."

He says his decision to stand for the Labour leadership for a second time came with more difficulty.

"I had been [in a] very close working relationship with Dick Spring and Ruairi and I had no illusions about how much pressure is on somebody in that job.

"The decision to stand again for the leadership after Ruairi's resignation was a very difficult one for me to make at that time because people thought I was just strategically waiting for the right moment to announce a decision that I had already made and I hadn't. I spoke to a lot of very close colleagues. I debated it in my own mind whether I wanted to do that or not and then decided yes, that I would do it."

He is candid about his hopes on the day. "I thought I would win and I didn't and the marking was clear."

Was he devastated? "Not devastated. I mean, it was a mixture of disappointment in the sense that I knew I could do a job in my heart and I had an idea of it, [of] where the essence and core of the party was and how it could be advanced. But at the same time, a great sense of relief that I could actually be one of the ones to say 'well, it's your job now'."

While some might suggest that Howlin has been nibbling at his boss's bum over recent months, he insists gallantly now that he believes Rabbitte "has done a remarkably good job. He is working damn hard. I know the hours he's putting in and that's an important part of the job.

"We have differences. We've differences on style, there's no question about that, but that's the internal dialogue of the party.

"People are making value judgements on two years of leadership. If you look at somebody like Dick Spring: in my judgement, he's the best leader the Labour Party ever had. Now that wouldn't have been the conclusion you'd have made through making a judgement two years into his term of office."

So he believes that Rabbitte needs more time to make his mark? "There's no doubt about that. I mean you need the time and the space to put your own stamp on the party – to bring the ideas you want to the fore – and the structure of the party, and to enthuse the membership and [to build] the sort of dynamic that the most successful of leaders have done in the past."

The new leader's handling of Michael D Higgins's stillborn bid for the presidency has drawn criticism from within party ranks. On this sensitive issue Howlin chooses his words carefully.

"I think that it was very pragmatic decision and Pat very coldly took advice and made the right decisions for the party in his judgement. I mean, he, I don't want to use the word coldly, that sounds cold, but he looked at what was coming up. Two by-elections, a general election within eighteen months, a very, very popular incumbent who could nominate herself, that looked like [she] would be endorsed by the two biggest parties in the land and by the PDs. To mount a campaign is very expensive and in terms of the resources available to a party like the Labour Party, hugely demanding. It's not a black and white issue and it wasn't a black and white issue for Pat Rabbitte. I mean, any judgement call like that, you're making a 60/40 judgement call."

What would he have done? "It's hard to know because I wasn't part of all the discussions so you never know what you'd do in those circumstances and the biggest part of the discussion would be the direct dialogue with Michael D. But I certainly would have no criticism at all of Pat's decision."

He is however open about his difficulty with the party leader's strategy of ruling out coalition with Fianna Fáil and placing all the party's eggs in the Fine Gael basket.

"I've been very clear on this since 1990, that putting forward our platform and negotiating after the event is what best serves the interests of the Labour Party.

"My personal view is that I don't define myself or the party by being opposed to a particular party but that Labour stands for itself.

"But I understand where Pat is coming from. He feels that it is bad for a democracy for one party to be as dominant as Fianna Fáil has been for a such a long time and that they need to be put out of their office.

"I believe that we have to give people a compelling reason to vote for Labour. I want to be in an alternative Government to Fianna Fáil after the next election and I think the only thing we are dialoguing now about is how best to bring that about and what strategy maximises Labour vote and Labour seats. I've had informal discussions with Pat about that and I haven't the slightest doubt that we will come to a very clear common platform across the party on how that's to be achieved."

"I've served in Government with Fianna Fáil. I've served in Government with the Rainbow. I must say that I've enjoyed both. Ultimately, politics is about what you can do for your country, to shape the kind of Ireland you want.

"You know there are two types of politicians. There are governments who do and oppositions who propose."

And you'd rather be in a government that does? "Obviously. But it has to be a government that will do what Labour wants."p