Labour mayor quits over party’s ‘austerity agenda’

The Labour Party leadership was hit by a new year’s political storm last night after its mayor of Dublin South quit the party claiming he was “sickened by Labour’s implementation of the austerity agenda”.

Thirty-one-year old Dermot Looney, who was only elected mayor last June, delivered a stinging attack on the party and its leader Eamon Gilmore claiming it had abandoned the most basic of social democratic concerns in government.

“Labour has kowtowed to Fine Gael’s economic agenda, presided over cuts across the public sector which worst affect those who are vulnerable, and implemented a series of demonstrably regressive budgets,” said the Tallaght primary school teacher who took a €7,000 pay cut of his €45,000 allowance and diverted it to the mayor’s fund when he took up the post.

Yesterday’s resignation came at a time when Labour was finally beginning to recover in the polls and on the day Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore praised the NTMA’s raising of €3.5bn on the markets as “a positive start to the new year” and “a vote of confidence in post-bailout Ireland”.

Mr Looney, who described himself as “left field” and said he will stand as an independent in May’s local elections, attacked the party leadership claiming it controlled Labour “by effect in a democratic centralism which ensures power in the party is concentrated in the hands of a small few”.

Over 25 Labour councillors, or nearly 10% of its total, have now resigned from Labour since it came to power in 2011.

Last night a Labour party spokesperson said while nobody claimed it was going to be easy, real progress had been made since the people voted Labour into government in 2011.

“It’s not about those public representatives who have quit the party,” he said. “It is about those who have the courage to stick with Labour, despite the fact that some very tough decisions had to be made.”