Alex selected as Candidate in forthcoming by-election
Alex with Local Election candidate Richard Humphreys at tonight's convention
I’m pleased and deeply honoured to have been selected by the Labour Party organisation in Dublin South as our candidate in the forthcoming By-Election in Dublin South. This By-Election, necessitated by the sad passing of Seamus Brennan, will now come at a most crucial time for our country.
Never before have we had such a clear opportunity to make decisive choices about what are the important values to our society. The recent budget statement – now apparently unravelling by the day – is the clearest evidence yet of this government’s failure on its most crucial responsibility: to secure the wellbeing of the citizens of the country, and to promote a caring and equal society. We are now reaping the errors of ten years of mismanagement and poor governance.
In due course, there will have to be a political reckoning as to what happened. As to what the current Taoiseach and indeed his predecessor as Taoiseach knew – and when did they know it. It is simply not credible to the Irish people that this economic crisis came out of nowhere. The vulnerability of our economy lies to a very considerable extent squarely at the door of the government. This is an issue which we will need to address in vigorous political debate.
At the moment, however, we are in a crisis. The solutions proposed by the government to redress the budgetary imbalance have seen cruel and unnecessary attacks on the future education of our young and the health and well being of our old. After many years of unprecedented growth and wealth generation these solutions are simply unacceptable. Labour, on the other hand, has put forward a bold and innovative programme to stimulate our economy. Over the coming months we will take this plan out to the doorsteps.
I look forward, along with many of my parliamentary and party colleagues to meeting with you and discussing the issues that are important to both of us, as we work towards delivering a decisive statement to this government that enough is enough, and that change is now required.
In this challenge, I hope I can count on your support.
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