The politics that matter: recovering values, the role of the left, the task of Labour

This conference is likely to be our last before the general election. I believe this election and the preparations for it will correctly emphasise the squandered opportunity of creating a humane, just and caring society in Ireland.

Many will point to the waste in resources on egotistically driven projects, such as the purchase of electronic voting equipment, while essential provision in health, education, transport and housing were neglected. Ireland was made more unequal. The concept of rights, essential to any viable definition of citizenship, was rejected in relation to every area, most disgracefully, in the area of disability.

The issues I wish to raise, however, go beyond the election itself, and they are not simply managerial. I suggest that they are moral, ethical, political and social.

Politics has been severely damaged, trust has been destroyed and the image that has been created by our decade of right-of-centre government in contemporary Ireland is not one of kindness or concern. The image is of a greedy country consumed in its consumption, one where, as the loudest mouth of the present government has put it, "Inequality in society is necessary as a spur to achievement".

The radical, individual, acquisitive greed that is at the centre of our present Government's thinking has led to their trumpeting a version of Ireland as gushing, brash, manipulative, speculative, ostentatious and grossly vulgar in its flaunting of wealth, which strikes at the very basis of responsible and inclusive citizenship.

The extreme individualism that drives this version of contemporary Ireland found it easy to break our pledge, solemnly given before the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 2000, that we would reach the UN target of Overseas Development Aid of 0.7 per cent of GNP in 2007. As our Government Ministers put it, we became too wealthy to keep our promise to the poorest of the poor in the world.

At home, the present alliance in power has allowed housing speculation to tear the heart out of the economy. The government sees no contradiction between their boast of being the second richest economy in Europe, and having the second-lowest level of social protection in Europe.

The thinking of the right is that such social expenditure must come after the needs of the de-peopled economy have been served. The benefits of economic expansion are overwhelmingly distributed to those who speculate and accumulate ever-greater fortunes, not from producing any real wealth, but from the speculative opportunities provided by government parties that they support and fund.

In every area of current government policy there is an exploitation of the politics of fear and an abandonment of a politics that might be built on what transcends the self. Why do I say this challenges politics itself? It does so because the capacity to go beyond oneself, towards others, to take their needs and lives into account, is the prerequisite of all human solidarity and the viability of society. It is the only real definition of citizenship.

The very concept of public service is being destroyed. Those who work for other than personal advancement, far from being appreciated for the work they do for citizens in general, are reviled and abused.

There is an urgent need to restore morale among those who decide to work in the public sphere. This issue has to be faced: the recasting of a public service that works to provide those basic needs and rights for which it is neither appropriate nor likely for the market to provide.

Labour stands for a social economy that recognises the basic rights that constitute an inclusive citizenship.

Of the twin commitments in the Lisbon Agenda of the European Union to competition and cohesion, only competition is acknowledged by those who feel they can impose a neo-liberal model in every circumstance at home and abroad. This model stands for an extended and stressful working life from which the basic guarantees won by generations of struggle have been stripped. In the name of labour market flexibility, new forms of exploitation emerge, often directed at the most vulnerable of employees, in particular migrant workers. All this in a country that calls itself a republic!

What, then, is the test of the left and of Labour? We must, above all else, insist on a return of values to policies and make the values debate a central part of our election campaign. The campaign cannot simply be about changing the managers of a system that is exploitative, unfair, unaccountable for the most part, dismissive of ethics and by any standards of public provision, immoral. We must invite the public to reject what the extreme individualism of the right has done, the destruction of the social that continues and that promises to blight future generations. Any party with which we might cooperate, in or out of government, must realise that there are bedrock values upon which Labour will not compromise.

It is important to remember that nothing that was gained by way of rights was conceded without a struggle that required moral courage, and I emphasise that the tasks of organising, mobilisation, agitation and confrontation remain.

The invitation of the right is to existence as an insatiable, isolated individual consumer. The only concession offered is that in time after all the unaccountable abuse of the economy is over, philanthropy will be encouraged: "God bless your Honour", "To your ladyship's Health!" That is what we can look forward to: a new landlordism, in the richest Republic in the world. Citizenship is defined as a type of guilt-ridden voluntarism.

The left must stress values based on solidarity, equality and justice. We must make the case for an inclusive citizenship in a republic and a European Union that is generous and accountable rather than a fortress of individualism and intolerance.

If we are to build a real and inclusive citizenship we have to reject the extreme individualism that characterises the politics of the right which currently prevails. We must with courage also confront the politics of fear with a defence of the social and have the courage to oppose the speculative and greedy interests that undermine society and that have torn the heart out of communities. Communities have the right to live in security and without fear. We have to make provision for that and reject the proposals of those who would seek to exploit, in cynical, populist fashion, the politics of fear.

The left has to make the case for a version of society that accepts and is built on the values that transcend the private and the populist. An inclusive citizenship in global terms accepts the multiplicity of cultures, narrations of history and hope, and shares ecological responsibility. It sees in interdependency the need to reject the futility of war in favour of an enhanced diplomacy.

An inclusive citizenship is social, open, multi-dimensional in its reach, stresses the social basis of creativity, rather than seeking a populist mandate for the politics of fear as the right has done.

An inclusive citizenship places at its centre universal provision on the basis of citizenship in such areas as health, education, transport, housing, public space, and children's welfare.

That founding narrative of the left was built on the demand for freedom, and this must never be forgotten, but we need to offer a critique of that which oppresses our voters now, to oppose that which claims to be inevitable, to be incontestable. We draw on our past to give us courage in the present and to define a future that has yet to be made. Nothing less is at stake.

Stating such a project is not, in itself, sufficient as a mere aspiration. The alternative cannot be left at the level of ethical desire. Our project must be described with clarity and most of all be prepared for practical implementation.

Proud to be left. Proud to be Labour. Let us take these responsibilities, make a new narrative to join to that of our founders, and build a real republic of inclusive, generous, welcoming and creative citizenship. Let us put an end to right wing misery.

Extract from Speech by Michael D Higgins TD, President of the Labour Party at the Labour Party National Conference, Tralee, Friday 27 May 2005