Cllr. Aidan Culhane        Dublin South

Well, we're off and running. Three weeks to go, and all to play for. As I'm unlikely to be updating the site over the next few weeks, if you're looking for Labour policy, please go to http://www.labour.ie. If you're looking for my views on any local or constituency issue, please send an email or give me a ring. The Election office number is 01 2164445.

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?” John Maynard Keynes

For the record I spoke and voted against the Leadership motion on electoral strategy at Labour’s conference in May of last year.

And I now believe, in the aftermath of two bad polls for Labour and Fine Gael, that the time has to revisit that decision.

I believe the concern expressed by those of us who feared that an electoral pact with Fine Gael has been vindicated since that date. In three of the last four polls Labour has been at 10%, a point and a half below our General Election performance in 2002.

I don’t like a politics that is about ruling people out, particularly from a party with our share of the vote. More especially I believe that the nature of the pact we are now in forces us to define our politics in a negative way. From my experience on the doorsteps, the Opposition is perceived as being against things. In doing so, even though Labour in particular played a key role in the origins of the Celtic Tiger, we are perceived as being begrudging about the progress made in recent years. And, let’s be honest, progress there has been. Not enough, and certainly not as much as an imaginative Government could provide, but progress nonetheless.

The reality is that the people I meet on the doorsteps recognize the limitations in this Government. They know they were lied to in the run up to the last General Election. They are, I believe, open to arguments that suggest things can be done differently. As an opposition, we haven’t been making enough of them.

My view, that Labour should contest the election as an independent party, is as strong as ever. I see no reason whatsoever why my party should argue for the election of the leaders of either ‘tweedledum’ or 'tweedlee' as Taoiseach. There are enough people deluded on this subject without us adding to it. In fact, though I differ with him on the strategy issue, I firmly believe that my party leader, Pat Rabbitte, is the most talented and able of the three party leaders. We should not be subordinating our presentation of him to that of the Fine Gael leader, which this strategy does at the moment.

I do accept though that my view is probably still a minority one within the party and that a decision was taken by the party conference last year. Pat Rabbitte is not going to ditch Enda Kenny at this stage, however much I wish he would.

But even within the confines of the strategy we adopted at Tralee, I believe there is considerable scope for a more independent presentation of both Labour and Fine Gael.

At the time we were told by Pat Rabbitte that Labour would enter the election on an independent platform, albeit under the auspices of agreed principles with Fine Gael. That however has not happened. Rather we are moving towards agreement on a broad common platform as evidenced by the publication of a recent document on health care.

I believe this has come to the detriment of both parties.

The truth is that we are not that similar. Our supporters look for different things from us. In some cases, like the Aer Lingus privatization, those demands are polar opposites. By doing our compromising before the election, we are minimizing our appeal to our respective constituencies. In our case that makes us, Labour, vulnerable on the Left, and Fine Gael, vulnerable to Fianna Fail and the PDs on the right.

This difficulty has been compounded by the fact that the pact deal has been done so far out from the election itself. This has hindered the development of policy in both parties and worse still has robbed us of the drama and news value of the parties coming together in the sight of the election. In short, Pat Rabbitte should have played much harder to get.

We are where we are though. And I for one don’t believe it is too late to turn the ship around. But as a Labour Party candidate I want to hear us articulate a sensible and coherent social democratic alternative, regardless of how Enda Kenny feels.

I want us to portray clearly how we can afford to spend more on key public services like health and education, because I know we can. Such a platform should include radical measures for the extension of free primary care to the whole population. I want to hear the radical agenda on climate change.

Indeed I would like my party to stand up clearly on behalf of the national interest against sectional interests, especially with regard to the development of a national infrastructure compatible with twenty first century prosperity.

I would like our tone to change. Let’s not oppose measures simply for the sake of them. I certainly can see some merit in stamp duty reform for example. The purpose of taxation as a policy tool is to incentivise certain types of behaviour – property downsizing should be part of that.

In fact, on taxation we are doing the Government’s work for it. Our current position (taxes are down and will stay down) accepts the Government’s argument that taxation is the be all an end all of our economic success. It gives far too much credit to the Government and undermines our fair arguments about the Government’s addiction to taxation by stealth). The truth is that taxation is only a single factor in our economic success. Let our commitment be that we won’t increase any taxes unless it is necessary for the good for the country – carbon taxes being a case in point.

This election is not over. The public may not have endorsed the Opposition approach so far but I believe they are open to persuasion. But if we are to succeed we need both Labour and Fine Gael to maximize our support.

In our case, that boils down to letting Labour be Labour.

Full text of letter to The Irish Times, published 27 October 2006

Dear Madam,

The government’s decision to restrict workers from Romania and Bulgaria after their their joining the European Union next year is disappointing to say the least. First, there is a principle of free movement of workers in the EU treaties, one of the core values of the Union. Ireland should show generosity to these new EU entrants by allowing them access to our labour market.

Second, our economy requires a large number of new workers in the next few years to sustain growth. Why should these new countries not have the same opportunity to come and work here that the last tranche of new EU members had?

The widely predicted “swamping” of the country by new immigrants has failed to materialise. Far from being a burden on the state, these new workers are contributing to our continuing prosperity. I fail to see why for instance the Bulgarian property market is a subject of continuing interest to Irish investors, but our labour market is off-limits to their workers.

Economic studies have shown no evidence of displacement in the labour market. We have full employment in Ireland. We need new workers. We have a moral obligation and an economic need, and just because there is a get-out clause restricting Romanian and Bulgarian workers is no reason to avail of it. For a nation who has sent so many of its own abroad over the years, it seems that the attitude is, ‘When you get up the ladder, pull it up after you’. Of course there are questions of exploitation that need to be addressed, but they should not obscure either the principle of free movement or the need for new workers.

In justifying the government decision, Minister Martin stated that we need to deal with integrating those who are here already before allowing the Bulgarians and Romanians their full rights as EU citizens. While Minister Martin remained untroubled by this question when he was in the Departments of Health or Education, integration is the most important question around immigration. Integration should be seen in opposition to a policy of assimilation that seeks to eliminate all cultural differences, and to a multiculturalism that emphasises differences and encourages separateness. A policy of integration should seek to permit people of all backgrounds to fully participate in Irish social and economic life, based on the values of democracy, tolerance, pluralism, and sexual equality .

If a good result can come of a bad decision, then a coherent policy answering the questions as to how newcomers to Ireland should be treated with regard to education, the economy, education, health, housing, etc might be it. It’s time to have the debate.

Yours faithfully,

Cllr Aidan Culhane

Cllr Aidan Culhane.

Confederation of European Councillors, Derry, 12 October 2006


1916. I think it’s clear that in Ireland the term evokes two very different responses. For most of us, it is the Rising of 1916. For some, it is the horrors of the Somme, and the First World War.

Looking back, it is clear that whatever your perspective is, both events were to prove cataclysmic for the fate of Ireland and Britain. The 1916 Rising in Dublin paved the way to independence for part of the island, while the Great War would change profoundly the nature of Britain.

For Britain, the war changed forever the certainties of the Victorian and Edwardian age. The rigidities of the class structure began to break down. The end of empire came into view. The role of women in society began to change, and the growth of the Labour movement continued. All would lead to a very different Britain than the one that so many men left to fight in Flanders.

Though many more Irishmen also left to fight for Britain in the First World War than stayed to fight against the British empire in the Easter rising of 1916, it is that insurrection far more than the War that came to define the state that was established after two bloody conflicts on the island itself – the war of independence and the Civil War. That state became defined by an ethos of 1916: nationalist Ireland not Imperial Britain; Catholic Ireland, not Protestant Britain.

For the UK, the end of the empire that the First World War heralded has meant that Britain has more than 50 years’ experience of mass immigration. Ireland’s experience has previously always been one of emigration, the Irish republic must for the first time consider the issue of significant immigration.

“Cherishing the children of the nation equally” is one of the most often quoted phrases of the Proclamation of 1916. Today, we need to look more closely at what this means, particularly in the context of a society which is dealing with large numbers of immigrants, be they refugees or economic migrants.

I believe that the state should set out a set of civic values that it regards as important, values that are not defined by a single religion, values that are applicable to all and supported by all. These are the values of democracy, rationalism, pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law. Through all its policies, but most particularly through education, the state should advance these values.

Many mistakes have been made in the past in the name of multiculturalism. The Irish state has, as I have said, largely defined itself negatively, that is by its separateness from Britain. It has never attempted to instil a set of civic values. Looking back at the ninety years since 1916, and looking forward to the country as it will appear at the centenary, it is time to radically re-assess how we define ourselves, and to assert our values in a positive way.

Before I go on, let me make clear that I support immigration. That is to say, I think that the state has a moral obligation, a legal duty under international law, and an economic need for immigrants to come. Let me also say that what I outline is not just a policy for the new Irish, it is just as important for our indigenous population.

A debate has bubbled under the surface in Ireland over the past year about the churches’ role in education. Archbishop Martin of Dublin early last year said that catholic schools must have a definable catholic ethos. My party leader responded by asking whether, especially for new communities, there must be four or five schools of different denominations where one or two would suffice. Fine Gael spokeswoman, Olwyn Enright took up the theme this summer in the context of multi-denominational education in the light of declining religious numbers. The UN committee on the Rights of the Child visited Ireland recently and commented on the lack of multi-denominational and non-denominational schools in Ireland, and recommended that the state “take fully into consideration the recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD/C/IRL/CO/2, para. 18) which encourages the promotion of the establishment of non-denominational or multi-denominational schools”.

So where are we to go? It strikes me that the time is right for a radical overhaul of education in which civic values are made explicit. It is surely right for a modern republic to set out the values in which it believes. For indigenous Irish, as well as for newcomers, those values I outlined: democracy, rationalism, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law should be advocated vigorously by the state.

Where there are practices that are contrary to these values, the state must not shy away from them in the name of multiculturalism or a cultural relativism in which values that should be absolute are occluded by a “that’s their culture” type argument. Freedom of worship and freedom of speech are the sine qua non of any true democracy, but no freedom is completely untrammeled.

No republic should shy away from advancing its values if it truly regards them as worthy of the name. And making these explicit through a modern inclusive education system is surely the least we can do to cherish the children of the modern Ireland equally.

Michael McDowell’s opening-up of the stamp duty debate is welcome. It isclear that certain reforms of the stamp duty regime should be considered. There are three reforms of particular significance. First, there needs to be a marginal rate of stamp duty to remove the market distortions and inequity where purchasers are paying a higher rate of stamp duty on the whole amount of a property even though it is close to the threshold of a lower rate. Second, the rates of stamp duty need to be index-linked in some way. Third, the distinction in stamp duty between new and second-hand homes should be abolished. While some caution is required on this, given the importance of the construction sector, it is not desirable that new properties are more attractive for families than second-hand homes.

Deeper debate is needed on the issue in the long term, but the problems he outlined should be addressed.

McDowell says we don’t need the money. Given the problems in our health services, our under-funded education system, and the fact that parents have to think twice, for cost reasons, before visiting a GP, I cannot agree with him. However, our tax collection must be fair, and not distort the market. McDowell may have opened the debate for self-serving reasons, it is still one worth having.

Dear Madam

John McManus (IT, 1 August 2006) has it about right when he says that there is an “unfortunate tendency on the left to identify all who oppose America as objectively progressive”.
The present situation across the Middle East is clearly very complex, but the left is too ambiguous about those who want to bring the region back to the Middle Ages, and, as in Iraq, those who attempt to foment civil war to create a viciously repressive state. That war is over: there is a UN-recognised regime in place and the Iraqi people have voted far more frequently in recent years than we have. In their opposition to the US and the Bush regime in particular, many on the left turn a blind eye to what my party colleague, Mr McManus, has correctly identified as the rise of ‘theocracy and fanaticism’.

The Left has been indolent in the face of a number of international issues in recent years. Lazy cries for UN reform excuse international inaction in the face of atrocities from Bosnia to Darfur. We, the left, were not even united in support of a NATO campaign to prevent further genocide in Kosovo.

On questions such as Cuba, a state which according to Human Rights Watch has an “undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent” and in which a dictator of forty years plus has just handed power to his brother, the Left remains hopelessly soft.

In his letter, John McManus says “it is the job of all those on the Left to be clear where they stand on the basic principles of liberty and equality”. To state it more baldly, the Left must support democracy, respect for human rights, and the rule of law.


Yours etc,

Following some comment on this letter, I sent the following:

Dear Madam,

The suggestion that I am at odds with my party on the position in Lebanon is not fully correct.

I fully support Michael D’s longstanding call for an immediate cessation of violence. The military action being undertaken by Israel is ill-conceived and counter-productive, even taking into account its right to defend itself. The civilian deaths are an outrage.

Yet Israel’s capacity to wage this war seems more than matched by Hizbollah’s capacity to fire rockets into Israel. One side, Hizbollah, seems to have done its strategic thinking, the other, Israel, has not. I suspect that had Sharon remained healthy this war would not be taking place.

That Hizbollah is so delighted by the response it has drawn forth from Israel shows its indifference both to Lebanon and to ordinary citizens who want to get on with their day-to-day lives. That the west seems more intent on holding Israel responsible for this particular catastrophe is to ignore those who orchestrated it. Again, it needs to be restated, Israel’s over-reaction cannot be allowed to obscure the actions and motives of a group whose world view is fundamentally hostile to all that progressives believe.

Finally, Michael D rails against the charge of anti-Americanism at those who hold his position. I understand his frustration. But when the deputy lord mayor of Dublin, a member of our party recently appeared on the airwaves telling the elected Governor of Florida to go home, is it any wonder that the charge is levelled against us?

Yours etc.