Euro elections: Why you should vote for the Labour Party

Second in a series of posts. The first post from a member of the Green party is here.

Aoife Carroll is a 27 year old Barrister who has been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 16. She is currently a member of the Clonsilla branch in Dublin West and has spent most of her time in the party working on election campaigns for Joan Burton and the other Dublin West Labour representatives. Currently she is spending most of her time on the Ivana Bacik Dublin Central by-election campaign.

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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, it’s the only show in town at the moment. How do we get them into the country? How do we keep them in the country? How do we sustain our own indigenous small and medium industries? It’s the major issue coming up on the doorsteps for every candidate and party. In many ways Europe is the key to our economic recovery and to creating and sustaining jobs. That’s why ‘people, jobs, fairness’ (not the catchiest of slogans, I’ll give you that) is the central theme of Labour’s European campaign. Throughout the 80’s the country benefited significantly from the European Social Fund which provided investment in regional technical colleges and training schemes for young people. At a time when job prospects for many graduates seem bleak we have to find ways of keeping people off the dole queues. Specifically Labour would like to use the European Social Fund to establish a skills programme to train workers and develop employment around green based industries and jobs.

So who is going to sort out the banks? The focus at the moment is propping them up and saving the bad debts of developers. It appears to me that the real question has almost been forgotten though. When all of our money has been used to put the banks back on track, what’s next? We cannot allow the banks to return to their old ways though with the Government silence on the issue recently it would appear that this will be the default result. The PES (Party of European Socialists – the group Labour is a member of in Europe) and Labour have been at the forefront of the campaign to ensure better regulation of the financial and banking system long before it became fashionable to be concerned about such technicalities. Labour might be limited in what it can do in the Dail as part of the opposition but with the PES it can force through tougher regulation of the financial systems to prevent this mess happening again.

And then there are the other issues which have been lost in the economic storm that has taken hold of the country. When the economic recovery beings we’ll all suddenly remember that issues such as climate change and development of the worlds poorest countries still present us with huge challenges. Labour is committed to reaching the United Nations’ millennium goals by 2015. This could be described as a pipe dream given the state of the world economy but I don’t believe that we should abandon our international and moral obligations merely because we’re going through a rough patch as a country. Similarly global warming and climate change isn’t going to stop just because the developers and builders in Ireland have run out of money. It is simply impossible for Ireland to tackle these problems on our own. A pan-European approach to creating alternative energy sources is needed because, lets be realistic, a nation of 4 million people switching their light bulbs isn’t going to stop the polar icecaps melting any time soon.

The PES is on course to become the largest party in the Parliament after these elections. After June 5th, the PES will hold committee chairmanships and will probably have majorities on each committee. That will lead to PES members having significant influence on policy and decision making within the Parliament. Europe is going to have to play a major role in our economic recovery and Ireland needs strong MEPs and the influence of the PES behind her to maximise the support available. Whether we like it or not our future is inextricably linked to that of the European Union. Just as the EU helped create our boom by providing funding for much needed infrastructure it’s going to be part of the catalyst to our recovery. Sending Prionsias De Rossa, Nessa Childers, Alan Kelly and Susan O’Keeffe to the European Parliament will provide a strong team to fight for Ireland’s interests.

Values are as important as specific policies. The social democratic values of the PES and Labour promote equality, fairness and international solidarity. We need MEP’s that share that mindset. That is what the Labour candidates provide.