Broken Promises from a broken party

In November 1982, before the last general election, the Labour Party published its election programme. We have identified thirty-one major commitments from this programme and, as the following article shows, progress has been made in only six of these. By Colm Toibin

• Increased taxation on capital and wealth to yield £200m a year - nothing has been done at all on that.

• No further increase in VAT rates on essentials. - this commitment was broken in the last budget with the introoduction of VATon clothes.

• PRSI to be levied on all forms of incomes - nothing has been done.

• All farmers with a taxable income to pay tax and health contributions - this has been implemented effectively.

• Personal tax allowances to be at the standard rate ˆnot done.

• Tax relief on loans, new mortgages, VHI and insurance policies to be allowed at a maximum of 35p in the pound xnot implemented.

• An income related property tax - implemented.

• Capital gains tax on development land to be increased to 90% - not done.

• Tax loopholes and avoidance mechanisms to be abolished, including guaranteed income bonds and grobonds and anannual tax to be charged on discretionary trusts - not done

• Urgent action to bring urban building land into community ownership at prices related to existing use value - not done

• Immediate closure of the compensation loopholes in the Planning Acts - not done.

• Active public sector involvement in job creation in industry - not done.

• A strong effective and independent National Developpment Corporation, with powers to invest up to £500m in equity capital in industry and with borrowing powers of £1 ,OOOm - the NDC has not been set up yet, although annnounced, but its equity and borrowing powers will be connsiderably reduced.

• Increased capital spending on local authority housing, on sanitary services to developing areas and on new road connstruction - effectively not done.

• Democratic ownership of the banking system - not even mentioned since.

• A comprehensive development plan for the agriculture and the food industry - yes for agriculture and no for the food industry.

• A land acquisition and distribution policy arrived at transferring the use of land to young full time farmers by long term leasing and an appropriate credit policy - not done.

• The revitalisation of the food processing industry through the state sector and the co-operative societies @nothing done.

• Public ownership of the gas distribution network in Dublin - not done but Frank Cluskey resigned on the issue.

• A Commission on Social Welfare - implemented.

• Social welfare expenditure to be maintained in line with the cost of living - achieved.

• Special help for disadvantaged groups - in the main, achieved.

• A national income-related pension scheme on incomes upto £20,000 - nothing done.

• A comprehensive national health service - not done.

• A national drug wholesaling company and the purchase of generic drugs - not done.

• A comprehensive family planning service - not done.

• Adequate grants for third level education - not done.

• Equal rights for the travelling people - no progress.

• Family law reform, including divorce - not done.

• The abolition of capital punishment - not done.

• An independent Garda authority - not done.

• The implementation of the 0 Briain Committee recommmendations on the Gardai - not done.

• RTE to have control over local radio - will not be done.

ANOTHER COMMITMENT GIVEN BY DICK Spring in the November 1982 election cammpaign was to re-open Clondalkin Paper Mills. A year later when two of the workers were on hunger strike and the ICTU leaders were meeting FitzGerald, Bruton, Spring and a number of civil servants to discuss the issue, Spring had nothing to say. He sat through the meeting drawing little men on a pad in front of him (a habit he shares with Michael O'leary). He intervened only once in the meeting, when Matt Merrigan dug in his heels at one point. Spring looked up and said "That's what I expected from you, Matt." He had no other contribution to make to the meeting.

A few days later a number of trade union leaders met the four Labour ministers. Cluskey took over the meeting, Spring was pushed aside. The same thing had happened before. Spring just didn't know enough about the issues and deferred to the former leader.

Around the same time a committee drew up a Labour policy document on taxation. It was to be used by the cabiinet in the run-up to the Budget. When it was presented to the parliamentary party it was accepted. Nothing more has ever been heard about it. Little or nothing of it got into the Budget. One item which was mentioned in the Budget speech was the abolition of tax relief on companies leasing machinery from banks. This piece of Labour policy did not make it into the Finance Bill, mainly due to pressure from a number of backbench Fine Gael TDs.

But Labour Ministers will argue that they are getting what they can out of this government and that they are getting no credit for tempering the excesses of Fine Gael. It is argued that cabinet secrecy makes Labour's position impossible and there is a need for Labour to go public more often. There is also support for more emphasis on the fact that there are two distinct parties with different traditions and policies in government.

Dick Spring emphasised this point in his Annual Conferrence speech. He had been warned of what happened in the previous two Coalitions. In 1975 when Richie Ryan was introducing a mini-Budget the Labour ministers, led by Brendan Corish, attempted in Cabinet to specify what Labour policy was. Liam Cosgrave refused to allow such discussion to take place and said he did not recognise two parties in government; there were simply Cabinet ministers. Cosgrave fought a long battle - which he eventually lost 0to force the advisers to the Labour Ministers to resign from the party.

Then there was Michael O'Leary. Although O'Leary fought long and hard in the 1981 Coalition Cabinet over a number of issues and threatened to pull Labour out of government on one occasion, over food subsidies, he was perceived to be too close to Fine Gael. Spring has tried to distance himself; he has also tried to keep the four Labour Ministers from blending too easily with Fine Gael.

After the Euro-elections he may have to go further. Most Labour deputies would go along with the resolution passed at the meeting of the Dublin South East branch of the party in late June, that Labour should publicly issue a list of specific proposals to be implemented over the next twelve months and should see to it that they are implernennted. The outcome of the meeting at Kilkee Castle may innclude such a resolution, although there will be pressure from the Ministers to water it down.

Among deputies and ordinary members alike the motto after the recent elections is no panic. Two TDs began sepaarate conversations with this reporter using those very words. The party has problems, everybody knows exactly what they are: organisation, discipline, policy, finance, image. These problems are clearly identified by people on both wings of the party. Yet there is no sense of urgency.

The voters didn't come out. But many members of the party believe that the voters stayed at home from simple apathy about Europe, not about Labour. Winning four seats in 1979 was a freak anyway, they say. They don't believe that the same thing would happen in a general election. Yet they don't want a general election at any time in the next year and there is a fear in the party that the local elections may be worse for Labour next year than they would have been this year - as the economic problems may in fact be worse. Garret FitzGerald was opposed to postponing the elections for this reason. He privately described the decision as "mad" .. Many Labour members still suffer from the feeling that it is the people's fault that the Labour vote is declining, rather than Labour's. This view permeates the party from Cabinet Ministers to Brendan Halligan to the grassroots.

Among the rural deputies and councillors being in government has distinct advantages which may not be apparent to the urban members of the party. Fianna Fail have ruled the roost in rural Ireland for so long and done so many favours for so many that their vote strengthens each time they get back into government. For Labour councilllors and deputies being in government with a Labour Minisster in the Department of the Environment is a chance to redress the balance. One anti-Coalitionist believes that the steadily declining vote for Labour might bring home to the rural deputies what the urban members of the party have been saying about Coalition, but it seems unlikely that there will be any significant shift against Coalition in the Labour Party before the next election.

Brendan Halligan has become something of a scapegoat in the party. Many see him as the cause of the party's present ills. He was general secretary of the party from 1977 and while Peter Prendergast was touring the country doing a complete overhaul of Fine Gael's organisation, appointing officers and forming new branches as well as closing down old ones, it is not clear what Brendan Halligan was doing. The great champion of Coalition in the 1970s now spends much of his time denouncing the Coalition arrangement and predicting the demise of Labour. Nobody can do anything about him except wonder what he's really up to.

Any reorganisation would involve giving more strength to the branches. Fine Gael was invigorated by giving the branches routine powers to call meetings and organise local .activities, taking such functions away from the TDs. Previously all correspondence relating to local activity came from the TD's office in Leinster House. The rank and file members also got more influence at national level. This worked in Fine Gael because the emphasis in that party is on marketing and strategy. Fine Gael doesn't have Labour's interest in policy and ideology. Local activists gained ennthusiasm from being given a real role in promoting Garret FitzGerald and from FitzGerald's willingness to listen to the bees in their bonnets. In the Labour Party any encourragement in that direction could become very dangerous, leading to real clashes on policy - as has been seen in the British LaOOu.:- Party - and most TDs would be bitterly opposed to such mores.

Colm 0 Briain has now been general secretary for almost a year. As direeror of the Arts Council he was enormously successful at establishing policy which was coherent and practical. He was considered to be resourceful, imaginative, ruthless and able. He has considerable experience of manipulating people within a a small organisation. He came into the Labour Party offices for three weeks in July 1983 in order to famialiarise himslef  with its routines, after that he planned to take a holiday. He was appalled by what he found. Everything was in a mess. Finances. organisation, procedure. He needed a holiday.

Members of the parilamenrary parry and the adminisstrative council talk of 0 Briain's potential. ~0S1 agree privately that he has not been as successful as they thought he would be. One of the problems was that when he entered the job he had no allies in Labour; he could identify with no section of the party. He has been unable to come to terms with the cumbersome traditions and practices. He has attempted to make changes. Earlier in the year, before the annual conference, he tried to ensure that branches which had not paid their annual dues could not send delegates to the annual conference. It was an elementary move in shaping-up the party, but the Administrative Council knew that this would have a devastating effect. Instead of bringing in more money it would drain members away. They voted against 0 Briain's motion.

O Briain resigned, the meeting was adjourned for an hour until Michael D. Higgins had persuaded him to reconnsider. He did. For 0 Briain the loss of the four Euro seats has been a baptism of fire. But the long-term effects will be even worse. The four Labour Euro MPs contributed £30,000 a year between them from their inflated expenses to the party. This income is now gone. In order to emphasise to the party how bad the financial situation is 0 Briain reo frained from paying his own salary for the first six months after he took up the post and then announced to the addministrative council that he was owed six months salary. Some of them are still looking at him.

O Briain is facing the facts. The party has no money; it is split in two and those on one side won't work for policies with which they disagree. They continue to denounce their own party in public. Those on the other side are in governnment and yet seem powerless to affect government policy on the two crucial issues: taxation and unemployment. It is considered impossible to revitalise a party which is in government in such circumstances. The only route forward is to hold on tight, shut your eyes and think of the 1990s beiag socialist. Or maybe the following decade, when Labour may become a force rather than a factor in Irish politics and stop having to slow down the savagery of Fine Gael. It seems a long time away. Meanwhile, there is the Workers' Party to consider, and Sinn Fein. •