Labour optimistic for election

WHILE not prepared to predict the number of seats Labour will get at the next election, former party leader Ruairi Quinn yesterday indicated they will go well beyond the 33 seats won by the party in the 1992 snap election.

Mr Quinn said that with 19% support they won 33 seats then, having gone into the election with 17.

Speaking in Limerick, Mr Quinn: “I would remind you we are now consistently at 22%-25% and the number of seats in Leinster House is still 166. If people believe change will happen, it will happen and that’s what happened in that snap election in November 1992. We have the candidates, we have the policies and we have the most popular leader in the country. What we need is for people to believe. We have 20 at the moment. It is impossible to say how many more we could get.”

On the decision of Mary Upton not to seek re-election to the Dáil in Dublin South Central, Mr Quinn said they have three sitting councillors in the five-seater where Labour came within 65 votes of winning a second seat at the last general election.