SIPTU green light to pact of FG-Labour
SIPTU general secretary Jack O’Connor gave his conditional support to the arrangement - a development that will be regarded as helpful to Mr Rabbitte when the issue of pre-electoral pacts is debated at the party’s national conference in May.
The so-called Mullingar Accord between Mr Rabbitte and FG leader Enda Kenny has proved to be divisive within the party.
Some members of the parliamentary party - notably Brendan Howlin, Kathleen Lynch and Derek McDowell - have questioned the strategy of ruling out negotiations with Fianna Fáil in the wake of the 2007 General Election.
Mr O’Connor, a party member, gave his qualified backing in a wide-ranging speech to the Lusk branch of the party last night. He pointed to the experience of the last election as an argument against Labour standing solely on its own platform.
“The outcome was that we retained our identity and they (FF and the PDs) retained and even strengthened their grasp on the levers of power.”
Mr O’Connor said he did not envisage a prospective coalition arrangement materialising with Fianna Fáil before the election, on the basis that the party was too closely welded to the PDs. But he goes on to say he cannot see SIPTU supporting an electoral strategy that “merely aims to replace Tweedledum with Tweedledee”.
Union support would only be forthcoming, he says, if the programme for Government retained enough of Labour’s “core values and objectives, without compromising others that are no less valuable”.
