Ирландская Лейбористская партия: История и современность

Irish political party

The Labour Party (Páirtí an Lucht Oibre, literally "Party of the Working People") is a centre left and social democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. it describes itself as a "democratic socialist party" in its constitution. Labour continues to be the political arm of the Irish trade union and labour movement and seeks to represent workers' interests in the Dáil and on a local level. Unlike many other Irish political parties, Labour did not arise as a faction of the original Sinn Féin party, although it merged with the Democratic Left in 1999, a party that traced its origins back to Sinn Féin. The party has served as a partner in coalition governments on eight occasions since its formation: seven times in coalition either with Fine Gael alone or with Fine Gael and other smaller parties, and once with Fianna Fáil. This gives Labour a cumulative total of twenty five years served as part of a government, the third longest total of any party in the Republic of Ireland after Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Led by Ivana Bacik, it is the fifth largest party in Dáil Éireann, with seven seats, and is the joint third largest party in Seanad Éireann, with four seats, making Labour the fifth largest party in the Oireachtas overall as of 2021. The Labour Party is a member of the Progressive Alliance, Socialist International, and Party of European Socialists.

James Connolly, James Larkin and William O'Brien established the Irish Labour Party on 28 May 1912, as the political wing of the Irish Trades Union Congress, in Clonmel Town Hall. This party was to represent the workers in the expected Dublin Parliament under the Third Home Rule Act 1914. However, after the defeat of the trade unions in the Dublin Lockout of 1913 the labour movement was weakened; the emigration of James Larkin in 1914 and the execution of James Connolly following the Easter Rising in 1916 further damaged it. The Irish Citizen Army (ICA), formed during the 1913 Lockout, was informally the military wing of the Labour Movement. The ICA took part in the 1916 Rising. Councillor Richard O'Carroll, a Labour Party member of Dublin Corporation, was the only serving elected representative to be killed during the Easter Rising. O'Carroll was shot by John Bowen Colthurst and died several days later, on 5 May 1916. The ICA was revived during Peadar O'Donnell's Republican Congress but after the 1935 split in the Congress most ICA members joined the Labour Party.

In Larkin's absence, William O'Brien became the dominant figure in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU) and wielded considerable influence in the Labour Party. O'Brien also dominated the Irish Trades Union Congress. The Labour Party, led by Thomas Johnson from 1917, declined to contest the 1918 general election in order to allow the election to take the form of a plebiscite on Ireland's constitutional status (although some candidates did run in Belfast constituencies under the Labour banner against Unionist candidates). It also refrained from contesting the 1921 elections. As a result, the party was left outside Dáil Éireann during the vital years of the independence struggle, though Johnson sat in the First Dáil.

The Anglo Irish Treaty divided the Labour Party. Some members sided with the Irregulars in the Irish Civil War that quickly followed, however O'Brien and Johnson encouraged its members to support the Treaty. In the 1922 general election the party won 17 seats, having fielded 18 candidates. Winning 21.4% of the first preference vote, this remains the party's highest ever share of the vote as of 2022. Larkin returned to Ireland in April 1923. He hoped to resume the leadership role in the ITGWU which he had previously left, but O'Brien resisted him. Larkin also created a pro communist party called the Irish Worker League. O'Brien regarded Larkin as a "loose cannon." Following a failed challenge to O'Brien's leadership and association with communist militancy, Larkin was expelled from the ITGWU and created the WUI, a communist alternative to the ITGWU, in 1924. Two thirds of the Dublin membership of the ITGWU defected to the new union. O'Brien blocked the WUI from admission to the ITUC. Larkin was elected to Dáil Éireann at the September 1927 general election. However, the Labour Party prevented him from taking his seat as an undischarged bankrupt for losing a libel case against Labour leader Tom Johnson. In 1932, the Labour Party supported Éamon de Valera's first Fianna Fáil government, which had proposed a programme of social reform with which the party was in sympathy. In the 1943 general election the party won 17 seats, its best result since 1927. The Irish Labour Party and the Irish Trades Union Congress separated in 1930. Future leader William Norton was prominent in urging the separation of the political and industrial wings of the labour movement into autonomous organisations, arguing that the move was necessary to broaden the party's electoral appeal beyond a trade union constituency. The party was socially conservative compared to similar European parties, and its leaders from 1932 to 1977 (William Norton and his successor Brendan Corish) were members of the Catholic fraternal organisation the Knights of Saint Columbanus. The early to mid 20th century marked constant battles within Labour about whether to appease the Catholic Church or to take on a more militant labour approach.

Despite efforts in the 1930s to sternly downplay the idea of Communist influence over the party, by the 1940s internal conflict and complementary allegations of communist infiltration caused a split in the Labour Party and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Tensions peaked in 1941 when party founder Jim Larkin and a number of his supporters were re admitted to the party and subsequently accused of "taking over" Labour branches in Dublin. In response William X. O'Brien left with six TDs in 1944, founding the National Labour Party, whose leader was James Everett. O'Brien also withdrew the ITGWU from the Irish Trades Unions Congress and set up his own congress. The split damaged the Labour movement in the 1944 general election. The ITGWU attacked "Larkinite and Communist Party elements" which it claimed had taken over the Labour Party. The split and the anti communist assault put Labour on the defensive. It launched its own inquiry into communist involvement, which resulted in the expulsion of six members. Alfred O'Rahilly in The Communist Front and the Attack on Irish Labour widened the assault to include the influence of British based unions and communists in the ITUC. The National Labour Party juxtaposed itself against this by emphasising its commitment to Catholic Social Teaching. However, Labour also continued to emphasise its anti communist credentials. It was only after Larkin's death in 1947 that an attempt at unity could be made. After the 1948 general election National Labour had five TDs – Everett, Dan Spring, James Pattison, James Hickey and John O'Leary. National Labour and Labour (with 14 TDs) both entered the First Inter Party Government, with the leader of National Labour becoming Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. In 1950, the National Labour TDs rejoined the Labour Party. From 1948 to 1951 and from 1954 to 1957, the Labour Party was the second largest partner in the two inter party governments (the largest being Fine Gael). William Norton, the Labour Party leader, became Tánaiste on both occasions. During the First Inter Party Government he served as Minister for Social Welfare, while during the Second Inter Party Government he served as Minister for Industry and Commerce. (See first inter party government and second inter party government.)

The Republic of Ireland Act 1948 and Ireland Act 1949 precipitated a split in the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) with Jack Macgougan leading anti Partition members out and affiliating branches to the Dublin party, joined by other left wing and nationalist representatives and branded locally as "Irish Labour". the British Labour party refused Beattie its whip. At Stormont, Belfast Dock was won by Murtagh Morgan in 1953 and Paddy Devlin in 1962, but Devlin in 1964 left for the Republican Labour Party and Irish Labour contested no further Westminster or Stormont elections. In the 1949 local elections it won 7 seats on Belfast City Council, 6 (unopposed) on Armagh urban district council (UDC) and one on Dungannon UDC. It was strongest in Warrenpoint and Newry UDCs, winning control of the former in 1949 and the latter in 1958, retaining seats in both until their 1973 abolition. Tommy Markey was expelled from the party in 1964 for taking a salute as Newry council chair from the Irish Guards. Party branches still existed in Warrenpoint and Newry as late as 1982, The Social Democratic and Labour Party founded in 1970 took most of Irish Labour's voters and soon had its formal endorsement.

Brendan Corish became the new Labour leader in 1960. As leader, he advocated for more socialist policies to be adopted by the party; although initially tempering by this describing these policies as "a form of Christian socialism", he would later feel comfortable enough to drop the "Christian" prefix. In contrast to his predecessors, Corish adopted an anti coalition stance. He attempted to give his fractious, divided party a coherent national identity, lurched it to the left and insisted Labour was the natural party of social justice. In the late 1960s, Labour began to embrace the 'New Left,' and Corish presented his A New Republic document at the 1967 Labour national conference, alongside a famous speech which declared that "The seventies will be socialist", which later became a Labour campaign slogan. Although Labour's share of the vote improved to 17% in the 1969 Irish general election, the best in 50 years, the party only won 17 seats 5 fewer than in the 1965 general election. The result dented Corish's confidence and caused him to reconsider his anti coalition stance. and in 1972, the party campaigned against membership of the European Economic Community (EEC). Between 1973 and 1977, the Labour Party formed a coalition government with Fine Gael. The coalition partners lost the subsequent 1977 general election, and Corish resigned immediately after the defeat.

In 1977, shortly after the election defeat, members grouped around the Liaison Committee for the Labour Left split from Labour and formed the short lived Socialist Labour Party. From 1981 to 1982 and from 1982 to 1987, the Labour Party participated in coalition governments with Fine Gael. While serving in coalition Labour was successful in averting steep cuts in social welfare favoured by Fine Gael. labour ministers also presided over a number of social policy initiatives such as a Family Income Supplement, a child care protection bill, a Maternity Benefit, a social employment scheme, the establishment of a Youth employment agency, and the adoption of an equa treatment directive. Nevertheless, as noted by one study, “voters did not reward them. Instead they were disappointed by Labour's inability to implement more of its own policies (Marsh and Mitchell 1999:49).” At the 1989 Labour Party conference in Tralee a number of socialist and Trotskyist activists, organised around the Militant Tendency and their internal newspaper, were expelled. Amongst those expelled included future TDs Clare Daly, Ruth Coppinger and Mick Barry as well as Joe Higgins, who went on to found the Socialist Party in 1996.

The early 1990s saw a sustained period of growth for the Labour Party. In 1990 former Labour Senator Mary Robinson became the first President of Ireland to have been proposed by the Labour Party. Although she had contested the election as an independent candidate, having resigned from the party over her opposition to the Anglo Irish Agreement, her victory was generally considered as reflecting very well on Labour, who had supported her campaign. Not only was it the first time a woman held the office but it was the first time, apart from Douglas Hyde, that a non Fianna Fáil candidate was elected. It was also in 1990 that Limerick East TD Jim Kemmy's Democratic Socialist Party merged into the Labour Party, and in 1992 Sligo–Leitrim TD Declan Bree's Independent Socialist Party also followed suit and joined the Labour Party. At the 1992 general election the Labour Party won a record 19.3% of the first preference votes, more than twice its share in the 1989 general election. The party's representation in the Dáil doubled to 33 seats in a momentum swing dubbed by the Irish national media as the "Spring Tide", who attributed much of the surge in the party's popularity to its leader Dick Spring. After a period of negotiations, the Labour Party formed a coalition with Fianna Fáil, taking office in January 1993 as the 23rd government of Ireland. Fianna Fáil leader Albert Reynolds remained as Taoiseach, and Labour Party leader Dick Spring became Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs. After less than two years the government fell in a controversy over the appointment of Attorney General, Harry Whelehan, as president of the High Court. The parliamentary arithmetic had changed as a result of Fianna Fáil's loss of two seats in by elections in June, where the Labour Party itself had performed disastrously. On the pretext that the Labour Party voters were not happy with involvement with Fianna Fáil, Dick Spring withdrew his support for Reynolds as Taoiseach. The Labour Party negotiated a new coalition, the first time in Irish political history that one coalition replaced another without a general election. Between 1994 and 1997 Fine Gael, the Labour Party, and Democratic Left governed in the 24th government of Ireland. Dick Spring became Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs again. Labour greatly influenced the policy document for the 1993 1994 coalition, with one observer noting that Fianna Fáil's policy document for the coalition "contained lots of our policies, While swaths of texts were lifted from our manifesto". (Bowcott 1993)

The Labour Party presented the 1997 general election, held just weeks after spectacular electoral victories for the French Socialist Party and British Labour Party, as the first ever choice between a government of the left and one of the right; but the party, as had often been the case following its participation in coalitions, lost support and lost half of its TDs. Labour's losses were so severe that while Fine Gael gained seats, it still came up well short of the support it needed to keep Bruton in office. This, combined with a poor showing by Labour Party candidate Adi Roche in the subsequent election for President of Ireland, led to Spring's resignation as party leader. In 1997 Ruairi Quinn became the new Labour Party leader. Following negotiations in 1999, the Labour Party merged with Democratic Left, keeping the name of the larger partner. This had been previously opposed by the former leader Dick Spring. Members of Democratic Left in Northern Ireland were invited to join the Irish Labour Party but were not permitted to organise. Quinn resigned as leader in 2002 following the poor results for the Labour Party in the 2002 general election. Former Democratic Left TD Pat Rabbitte became the new leader, the first to be elected directly by the members of the party.

Prior to the 2004 local elections, party leader Pat Rabbitte had endorsed a mutual transfer pact with Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny. Rabbitte proposed an extension of this strategy, named "the Mullingar Accord", going into the 2007 general election. Although Rabbitte's strategy was opposed by some influential members such as Brendan Howlin it was supported by approximately 80% of Labour conference delegates. However, at 2007 general election the Labour Party failed to increase its seat total and had a net loss of 1 seat, returning with 20 seats. Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the Green Party and independents did not have enough seats to form a government. Pat Rabbitte resisted calls to enter negotiations with Fianna Fáil on forming a government. Eventually, Fianna Fáil entered government with the Progressive Democrats and the Green Party with the support of independents. In the aftermath, Rabbitte resigned as Labour Party leader in late August, taking responsibility for the general election result. In his wake Eamon Gilmore was elected, unopposed, as the new Labour leader.

Following the onset of the post 2008 Irish economic downturn, Labour's political fortunes began to alter rapidly. At the local elections of 5 June 2009, the Labour Party added 31 new councillors to their tally and performed particularly well in the Dublin region. At the 2009 European Parliament election held on the same day, the Labour Party increased its number of seats from one to three, retaining the seat of Proinsias De Rossa in the Dublin constituency, while gaining seats in the East constituency with Nessa Childers, and in the South constituency with Alan Kelly. It was the first time since the 1979 European Parliament Elections that Labour had equalled the number of seats held in Europe by either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. On 11 June 2010, a poll by MRBI was published in The Irish Times which, for the first time in the history of the state, showed the Labour Party as the most popular, at 32%, ahead of Fine Gael at 28% and Fianna Fáil at 17%. Eamon Gilmore's approval ratings were also the highest of any Dáil leader, standing at 46%.

At the 2011 general election, Labour received 19.5% of first preference votes, and 37 seats. It was the most seats the Labour party had ever won in the Dáil, and their highest percentage of first preference votes since the Spring Tide of 1992. Eamon Gilmore was appointed as Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. In October 2011 the Labour Party's candidate, Michael D. Higgins was elected as the 9th (and current) President of Ireland. On the same day, Labour's Patrick Nulty won the Dublin West by election, making the Labour Party the first government party in Ireland to win a by election since 1982. Labour lost seven parliamentary members over the course of the 31st Dáil. On 15 November 2011 Willie Penrose resigned over the closure of an army barracks in his constituency. On 1 December 2011 Tommy Broughan lost the party whip after voting against the government in relation to the Bank Guarantee Scheme. On 6 December 2011 Patrick Nulty lost the party whip after voting against the VAT increase in the 2012 budget. On 26 September 2012 Róisín Shortall resigned as Minister of State for Primary Care and lost the party whip after conflict with the Minister for Health James Reilly. On 13 December 2012 Colm Keaveney lost the party whip after voting against the cut to the respite care grant in the 2013 budget. Senator James Heffernan lost the party whip in December 2012 after voting against the government on the Social Welfare Bill. MEP Nessa Childers resigned from the parliamentary party on 5 April 2013, saying that she "no longer want[ed] to support a Government that is actually hurting people", and she resigned from the party in July 2013. In June 2013, Patrick Nulty and Colm Keaveney resigned from the Labour Party. Willie Penrose returned to the parliamentary Labour Party in October 2013. On 26 May 2014, Gilmore resigned as party leader after Labour's poor performance in the European and local elections. On 4 July 2014, Joan Burton won the leadership election, defeating Alex White by 78% to 22%. On her election, she said that the Labour Party "would focus on social repair, and govern more with the heart". It was the worst general election in its history, with a loss of 30 seats on its showing in 2011. On 20 May 2016, Brendan Howlin was elected unopposed as leader; some controversy arose from the fact that there was no contest for the leadership because none of his parliamentary colleagues were prepared to second the nomination of Alan Kelly. Howlin stated that as leader he was prepared to bring Labour back into government, citing the lack of influence on policy from opposition. He denied any suggestions that Labour could lose any further support from their 2016 performance, stating "We're not some outfit that comes out of the morning mist and disappears again. We're the oldest party in the state".

In the Irish local elections and the European Parliament election of May 2019, despite a decreased vote share by 1.4%, Labour increased their seat count on local authorities to 57, an increase of 6. However, the party failed to win a European seat, leaving the S&D Group unrepresented by an Irish MEP for the first time since 1984. At the February 2020 election, the party's first preference vote dropped to 4.4%, a record low. In the subsequent Seanad elections, Labour won 5 seats, which tied them with Sinn Féin as the third largest party in the House. After the general election, Brendan Howlin announced his intention to step down as the leader of the Labour Party. On 3 April 2020 Alan Kelly was elected as party leader, edging out fellow Dáil colleague Aodhán Ó Ríordáin 55% to 45%. In July 2021, the party gained a seventh TD in the Dáil after Ivana Bacik won the 2021 Dublin Bay South by election. In March 2022, Kelly resigned suddenly as leader, less than two years into the role and having not lead the party into an election. He did so upon being informed by Sean Sherlock and Duncan Smith, both of whom had supported him in his leadership bid, along with Mark Wall, that the parliamentary party had lost "collective confidence" in his leadership. The plan to remove him was devised by the parliamentary party in the home of Senator Marie Sherlock, in the absence of Kelly. An internal report reportedly showed that every one of the party's nationally elected representatives were at risk of losing their seats in the next general election. Kelly became emotional as he announced his resignation, stating that the decision by the parliamentary party was a "surprise" to him, but that he accepted it immediately. On 24 March 2022 Ivana Bacik was confirmed as the new leader of the party unopposed at a conference in Dublin.

The Labour Party has been involved in various campaigns for LGBT rights and put forward many bills. The party was in government in 1993 when homosexuality was decriminalised in Ireland, and it was President Mary Robinson, herself a longstanding LGBT advocate, who signed the bill into law. Mervyn Taylor published the Employment Equality Bill in 1996, which was enacted in 1998, outlawing discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sexual orientation. Taylor also published the Equal Status Bill in 1997, enacted in 2000, outlawing discrimination in the provision of goods and services on grounds listed including sexual orientation. At the 2002 general election, only the manifestos of the Green Party and Labour explicitly referred to the rights of same sex couples. In 2003, Labour LGBT was founded. This was the first time a political party in Ireland had formed an LGBT wing. proposing the legalisation of civil partnerships and adoption for same sex couples. The Fianna Fáil government amended the bill to delay it for six months time, however the Dáil was dissolved for the 2007 Irish general election before this could happen. Labour again brought this bill before the Dáil in 2007 but it was voted down by the government, with the Green Party, who had formerly supported gay marriage, also voting in opposition to the bill, with spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe arguing that the bill was unconstitutional. At their 2010 national conference Labour passed a motion calling for transgender rights and to legislate for a gender recognition act.

Labour supported the repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland in 2018 to legalise abortion, and canvassed for a Yes vote in that referendum. Alan Kelly sponsored a bill in 2020 that called for all workers to receive a legal right to sick pay, as well as paid leave for employees whose children have to stay home from school due to COVID 19 measures. The government amended this bill to delay it for six months, a decision that senator Marie Sherlock branded as "unacceptable".

In 2020, Labour TD Aodhán Ó Riordáin successfully campaigned for Ireland's free school meals campaign to be extended across summer. Labour have called for all primary education to be made free by providing grants for books, uniforms and students, and ending the two tier pay system for teachers and secretaries. In 2021, they called for a three year rent freeze and a tax to be placed on vacant houses, as well as investment into student housing and preventing student housing from being converted to short term rentals.

In their 2020 manifesto, Labour proposed spending an additional 1 billion euro per year on health and delivering free GP care for all under 18s. In 2021, Labour proposed nationalising two hospitals one in Dublin and one in either Galway or Cork.

In their climate manifesto in 2020, the party called for halving the country's emissions by 2030, supporting farms transitioning to more environmental forms of farming, restoring peatlands and bogs, banning offshore drilling and supporting a just transition.

The Labour Party supports the legalisation of cannabis for recreational and medicinal purposes, having outlined this policy in their submission to the Citizen's Assembly on drug use in July 2023. In 2017, Labour leader Brendan Howlin became the first traditional party leader to back the full decriminalisation of cannabis in Ireland. This came after a motion endorsed by Aodhán Ó Riordáin supporting the legalisation of cannabis for recreational usage was passed at Labour conference. Ó Riordáin had previously voiced his support for the decriminalisation of all drugs, stating that "About 70 per cent of the drugs cases that are before our courts at the moment are for possession for personal use, which to be honest is a complete waste of garda time and criminal justice time", saying that someone suffering from addiction "is fundamentally a patient, who should be surrounded by compassion, not somebody who should be sitting in a court room." The previous party leader Alan Kelly has stated that he supports the legalisation of cannabis in Ireland on both medicinal and recreational grounds, and current party leader Ivana Bacik has also spoken in support of the legalisation of cannabis.

The party has called for a campaign to promote the usage of spoken Irish, funding outreach initiatives for minorities and marginalised communities and creating a fund for artists. Subsequently, the records of Democratic Left were also donated to the library and can be access via the call number: MS 49,807.

Election Leader 1st prefvotes % Seats ± Government 1922 Thomas Johnson 132,565 21.3 (#3) 17 1923 111,939 10.6 (#4) 3 Jun 1927 143,849 12.6 (#3) 8 Sep 1927 106,184 9.1 (#3) 9 1932 Thomas J. O'Connell 98,286 7.7 (#3) 6 1933 William Norton 79,221 5.7 (#4) 1 1937 135,758 10.3 (#3) 5 1938 128,945 10.0 (#3) 4 1943 208,812 15.7 (#3) 8 1944 106,767 8.8 (#4) 9 1948 115,073 8.7 (#3) 6 1951 151,828 11.4 (#3) 3 1954 161,034 12.1 (#3) 3 1957 111,747 9.1 (#3) 7 1961 Brendan Corish 136,111 11.6 (#3) 4 1965 192,740 15.4 (#3) 6 1969 224,498 17.0 (#3) 4 1973 184,656 13.7 (#3) 1 1977 186,410 11.6 (#3) 2 1981 Frank Cluskey 169,990 9.9 (#3) 2 Feb 1982 Michael O'Leary 151,875 9.1 (#3) Nov 1982 Dick Spring 158,115 9.4 (#3) 1 1987 114,551 6.4 (#4) 4 1989 156,989 9.5 (#3) 3 1992 333,013 19.3 (#3) 18 1997 186,044 10.4 (#3) 16 2002 Ruairi Quinn 200,130 10.8 (#3) 1 2007 Pat Rabbitte 209,175 10.1 (#3) 2011 Eamon Gilmore 431,796 19.5 (#2) 17 2016 Joan Burton 140,898 6.6 (#4) 30 2020 Brendan Howlin 95,582 4.4 (#5) 1

ElectionSeats won±PositionFirst Pref votes %1925 1 2nd46,77615.3%

Election Candidate 1st pref. votes % +/– Position1945Supported Patrick McCartan as an independent1974Supported Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh with Fianna Fáil per agreement1990Mary Robinson612,26538.9% — 11997Adi Roche88,4237.0% 31.9 42011Michael D. Higgins701,10139.6% — 12018Supported Michael D. Higgins as an independent

Election 1st prefVotes % Seats +/– 1979 193,898 14.5 (#3) 1984 93,656 8.3 (#3) 4 1989 155,572 9.5 (#4) 1 1994 124,972 11.0 (#3) 1999 121,542 8.7 (#3) 2004 188,132 10.5 (#4) 2009 254,669 13.9 (#3) 2 2014 88,229 5.3 (#4) 3 2019 52,753 3.1 (#6)

The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Labour (Dáil) constituency councils, affiliated trade unions and socialist societies. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions (Dáil, Seanad, European Parliament) form the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). The party's decision making bodies on a national level formally include the executive board (formerly known as the National Executive Committee), Labour Party Conference and Central Council. The executive board has responsibility for organisation and finance, with the Central Council being responsible for policy formation – although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say on policy. The Labour Party Conference debates motions put forward by branches, constituency councils, party members sections and affiliates. Motions set principles of policy and organisation but are not generally detailed policy statements. For many years Labour held to a policy of not allowing residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The National Conference approved the establishment of a Northern Ireland Members Forum but it has not agreed to contest elections there. As a party with a constitutional commitment to democratic socialism founded by trade unions to represent the interests of working class people, Labour's link with unions has always been a defining characteristic of the party. Over time this link has come under increasing strain, with most craft based unions based in the public sector and Irish Congress of Trades Unions having disaffiliated since the 1950s. The remaining affiliated unions are primarily private sector general unions. Currently affiliated unions still send delegates to the National Conference in proportion to the size of their membership. Recent constitutional changes mean that in future, affiliated unions will send delegations based on the number of party members in their organisation.

At the 2014 local elections Labour lost more than half of local authority seats; 51 councillors were elected this result led to the resignation of party leader, Eamon Gilmore. Following the 2019 Irish local elections, the party had 57 local representatives.