Why is the Irish Labour party such a failure ?

She is a Women's rights hero for sure . Might not appeal to everybody alright ...

Have to think that Leo did her a favour running that other candidate in that byelection instead of Kate O'Connell?

Why I don't know, as it made it easy for her ...

I wouldn't regard ending religious patronage of schools as ultra woke, I am not sure if you are implying that. Almost all primary schools are religious and only half of marriages take place in churches. So there seems to be a supply/demand mismatch here. The state pays for the building and running in these schools for the most part. I would prefer to not have my kids sent to a school where they are told fairy tales as truth. That is before you even get into the fact that the church was covering up for pedophiles at the highest level. Cardinal Sean Brady when he was a priest was swearing children to silence when they reported the abuse. He didn't got to the police because he "wasn't the designated person".

So they put the good of the country ahead of the good of their party? And we’re giving them a hard time for that?

Right and they shouldn't be either. It was about getting the PS to pay a bit more towards the cost of their pensions. The pension was not taken into account in the opaque bench marking process during the bubble. It was an attempt by the government to bribe unions to keep the peace, to the detriment of all non PS workers. The one off taxes from the property bubble could have been used to cushion the eventual crash, but were instead used to pay for long term pay increases for PS workers and also to take as many people out of the tax net as possible.

The banks should have been properly regulated at the time and prevented from loaning out large salary multiples. We know they can't be relied on to regulate themselves. It would have been unpopular and would have required a bit of foresight. Instead our crew of school teacher TDs decide to take the easy route and fling free sweets around to keep everyone quiet.

If they had done that you could forgive them, but they put the good of themselves before party and country.

That’s not restoring the cut. That’s a smaller cut for a smaller benefit.

they're shooting themselves in the foot getting rid of Alan Kelly, it won't be forgotten (or forgiven) down Tipperary way 😑 completely nuts, unless there was something going on behind the scenes

Not going to read the entire thread, but essentially from an Irish pov, they promised too much in GE11 and then when hit with reality, their voters turned on them. If one actually looks at the record, they actually did OK, policy-wise in 2011, but the expectations they built-in 2011 was so much and left-wing voters are idealistic anyway, it was always going to end badly. Then SF comes in and pretends they are the anti-establishment working-class party....

Yet, we will see how they get on in government, they will have the same issues, if not worse.

Social democracy has had a hard time of it recently anyway as politics shifts to populism. Labour is in that heap as well. Lots of attention to Green politics as well.

amongst the working class in this country they've lost their way SF has that sewn up now, and Ivana Bacik is the last person to appeal to working class voters, she's too intellectual too bookish, at least Alan Kelly had the common touch

Kelly made no bones about it in his speech about getting pushed out against his will.

I hate everything about the Labour party because they have turned into a liberal upper middle class party who know little or nothing about life outside urban areas but Kelly was someone that ordinary people could relate to even if they didn't agree with him.

Chances are it will probably be O Riordain or Bacik to replace him and their only audience will be the posh Dubs.

It's not the 'being in government' as such; after all the Greens have more than recovered from an ever more trying time in office. I don't find it implausible that Labour's brazen promise-breaking and the failure to do a proper mea culpa subsequently is still held against them by very many left-leaning voters, who after all have plenty of other options. Should help that the new leader will not have been a minister in that government.

The argument is used by others on the left and by lazy journalists, trotting out the same old line - that Labour were to blame for austerity blah, blah, blah.

It's up to the same Labour Party to shrug it off and fight back. They should be unequivocal about water charges also, these had a fair wind behind them until that ***** in FG messed things up in his arrogant way. Then allowed the Paul Murphys to spin a whole new agenda. Most reasonable people looking at water charges by use, would still conclude that of all the many taxes, it's one that makes sense. Labour should never apologise for that and when others raise it, challenge them.

Here is the thing in labour's manifesto it was clear they backed cuts. If FG were in power on their own it would have ran riot on public expenditure. Labour insisted on tax rises.

There is a large segment of the electorate who believes that the Irish government could have told the EU/imf to fxxx off and they would have got away with it. No austerity one word reply - Greece.

In retrospect the IMF said they insisted on too much austerity but they didn't say none at all.

The Labour Party did say one thing in public and another in their manifesto.

My main criticism with that Government is that they didn't reform the health service at a time when no union would dare strike. Nor did they tackle price rising doctors and exorbitant lawyers.

As a teacher Ruari Quinn brought in a junior cert that lowered academic levels beyond belief.

Instead of trying to figure out why labour are such a failure, lets just rejoice in the fact that soon they will no longer exist hopefully...and good riddance.