Labour elects its youngest chair in close poll

Labour elected Siptu official Lorraine Mulligan as its new chairperson over the weekend after a close competition for the position on the party’s executive board.

Ms Mulligan is one of the youngest ever chairpersons of the party and won the position by 318 votes to 296, beating ex-general secretary Ray Kavanagh for the post.

Her appointment comes after a controversial period for the board in which Labour rebel and Galway East TD Colm Keaveney was chairman, despite being exiled for voting against last year’s budget.

Ms Mulligan is a full-time researcher on employment for trade union Siptu. She married Conor Power earlier this year, who is also a Labour member and a barrister.

Ms Mulligan has been active in Labour since being in Labour youth. She is originally from Longford, but lives in Dublin. She was vice chairman of the party in 2012 and then took over the chairperson role when Mr Keaveney resigned earlier this year.

Despite being elected to the post at last year’s party conference, Mr Keaveney lost the party whip after he voted against the coalition’s budget in late 2012. He remained on as chairman, despite criticising Labour’s actions as an Independent TD. He then resigned this year.

Labour members privately said at the weekend that a failure of some delegates to turn up and a greater turn-out of younger voters helped Ms Mulligan win the vote.

It is also thought that some long-term members of the parliamentary party were not in favour of Mr Kavanagh taking the post.

Meanwhile, accounts released for the Labour party over the weekend show that Labour has a war-chest of funds built up in time for next year’s local and European elections.

Accounts up to the end of 2012 reveal that it had €1.5 million in its accounts for the end of that year, compared with €325,000 at the end of 2011. The increase can be partly put down to the incoming revenue from the party leader’s allowance as well as other funds that Labour gets from the Exchequer for the number of parliamentary members it has since the last general election. The figures also show that PR and publicity costs as well as travel and subsistence costs for the party halved last year.

Other details show that €253,000 was spent on its national conference last year, an event which was marked by protests and clashes between marchers and gardaí in Galway.

When debts and creditors are removed, the 2012 figures show Labour had €3.3m in the bank at the end of last year compared with €1.9m the previous year.