Labour poaches Green’s Childers

LABOUR stunned the Green party last night by poaching one of its more high-profile members to run for the European elections next year.

Nessa Childers, daughter of the late president Erskine Childers, will seek the Labour nomination to run in the Ireland East [formerly Leinster] constituency.

The party will hold a convention to select its candidate for the constituency in November at which it is expected Ms Childers will be nominated unopposed.

She resigned from the Green party yesterday, two months after she had resigned her seat on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. She had represented the Greens on the council since June 2004.

The Green party last night admitted it was caught unawares by Ms Childers’ move. “The Green party are surprised by Nessa’s decision,” a spokesman said. “We wish her well. It’s obviously disappointing and it was not what we expected.”

A psychoanalyst with her own private practice, Ms Childers was quoted shortly after resigning her council seat in August as saying the dual workload was too heavy.

“I am leaving with a heavy heart as I loved being a public representative, but the two jobs are incompatible at the moment,” she said of the decision.

Ms Childers is joining Labour at the invitation of party leader Eamon Gilmore.

“I am a passionate believer in the EU like my father before me,” Ms Childers said last night. “The balance of economic and social advantage lies in our active participation in Europe.

“There is, however, a clear perception that many people feel unheard as citizens in Europe. Government has singularly failed to address this issue.”

She said it would be a “great honour” to stand as a Labour party candidate next June.

“In the coming weeks, I will be spending my time listening to and speaking with members of the Labour party throughout Leinster and I will then be seeking their support in the convention.

“As a result of this decision, I am today resigning my membership of the Green party and in doing so I would like to express my appreciation to the Green party leader, John Gormley, and all the members of the Green party with whom I worked for a number of years,” she added.

Mr Gilmore said Ms Childers was a person of the “highest integrity” who brought to public life “her very considerable abilities in academic life and in running her own private practice”.