Irish Examiner view: A unified left could turn the tide in Irish politics

Labour open to merger with Soc Dems 

Labour leader Alan Kelly.

Labour leader Alan Kelly’s come-hither to the Social Democrats is hardly unexpected. 

Rather, his we-might-if-you-might courting is a recognition of a well-trodden path for small or reduced parties on the left struggling to maintain a presence, much less generate momentum. 

It is a tacit acknowledgement that unless the tide turns in the next election or two, then the Irish Labour Party, the party at the very root of so much positive social change in this country, will be irrelevant. 

Indeed, that hat may almost fit already. Labour stands at between 4% and 5% since the election, when it secured six Dáil seats, the same as the Social Democrats.

That sorry state of affairs is not to be celebrated, however, as politics, no more than nature, abhors a vacuum. 

In a country that recorded youth unemployment at 47.3%, that vacuum is a yawning one and offers the prospect of huge change, if that cohort can be engaged. 

Mr Kelly’s public kite flying comes as it is all too obvious that the two main coalition parties are, as Fr Peter McVerry warned, incapable of the mind shift — or compassion, if you prefer — needed to address the fundamental issues around social justice or opportunity. 

That need, that constituency, will be addressed, if not satisfied, by one party or another, as current polls indicate. 

It would be a tragedy if the Labour Party, with its long and unquestioned commitment to democracy and social equity, were not an influential voice in that process.