conventions. Councillor Colm Keaveney from Tuam accepted that a second candidate, from the south of the county, would be needed if he were to have a realistic chance of winning in Galway East. He raised no objections to the addition of a young barrister, Lorraine Higgins from Athenry, who had been an Independent candidate in the 2009 Local Elections. Geography also dictated the necessity of adding a North Louth candidate to boost the chances of Drogheda-based Ged Nash. We nominated a well-known music teacher, Mary Moran from Dundalk. Deputy Brian O’Shea, who had been Chairperson of the Party, had decided not to seek re-election in Waterford. Local opinion polls suggested that Councillor Seamus Ryan was having difficulty picking up votes in the west of the county. We added a new young councillor from Dungarvan, Ciara Conway, who, remarkably, went on to outpoll Seamus and to take the seat.
Eventually, after careful preparations, Labour was set to contest the 2011 General Election in every constituency, with over seventy candidates in total, the highest number since 1969, and enough to become the largest party in the Dáil. We were offering the Irish people the choice of electing a Labour-led government for the first time ever. The ‘Gilmore for Taoiseach’ posters were intended to make that choice explicit; and in any event – according to the opinion polls – that was the people’s preference at that stage.
Meanwhile, we had been preparing our campaign. I had appointed Ruairí Quinn as the National Director of Elections to head a special committee composed of senior politicians and senior Party staff. The committee would run the campaign on a day-today basis. We rented an open-plan floor in a modern office building in Golden Lane (now the home of TheJournal.ie) as our election headquarters. Based on the policy preparation work undertaken by Colm O’Reardon and Jean O’Mahony, posters, pamphlets and policy documents were produced to a standard design under the banner slogan of ‘One Ireland: Jobs, Reform, Fairness’, which became the title of the election manifesto.
The manifesto, which ran to 90 pages, was drawn up at a time of turmoil in Ireland. I believed that it had to offer hope to people who were by now traumatised by the economic collapse, and who were fast losing confidence in politics.
I had lived through the economic crisis of the 1980s and had seen, at first hand, the devastating effect of losing a job on the individual worker, on his or her family, and on their community. What the new Government would have to face was worse than the 1980s. Recovery would not happen just by cutting budgets. It would have to be built on job creation. Our manifesto would spell out how that would be done by growing new jobs in tourism, in the food industry, in the green economy and through innovation. It would spell out how Ireland could increase its exports and support small businesses. Our priority would be creating jobs. But I also felt that re-building the broken economy was not enough. We also had to repair public life and politics. I asked Brendan Howlin to draw up a blueprint for reform and he produced 140 proposals for the reform of politics and the public service.
I also knew that budgets would have to be cut, but I believed that this needed to be done fairly. No cut would be painless and every cut would have consequences for somebody. But we needed to maintain a threshold of decency, a floor below which people could not be allowed to fall. That’s why we concentrated on ways to enable people to continue living in their homes, to maintain basic social welfare rates, and to restore the minimum wage.
Just after Christmas, I began my ‘Leader's Tour’ of the constituencies. It began on Wednesday January 5 at the Glen of the Downs, a short distance from my Shankill home. In the Glenview Hotel, with our three candidates and a large crowd of Labour supporters, I kicked off the general election campaign in Wicklow. Then on to Enniscorthy and Wexford to hook up with Brendan Howlin and the late Pat Cody, and from there to Clonmel to campaign with Phil Prendergast the following morning. After that it was back to Dublin for a press conference on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, it was Louth and Meath, and then back to campaign in the Dublin constituencies over the weekend. And it continued like that, every day, until polling day. We travelled in a fleet of estate cars decorated in the red Labour livery. We felt the cars would be more nimble than a campaign bus in urban traffic. I was in the first car, driven by Kevin Eager, accompanied by my Communications Manager, Karen Griffin. In the second car was a team of young election workers whom we labelled ‘the red jackets’. They created a splash of Labour colour at each stop, handing out literature and leading the way for the candidates. Behind that came the press corps, made up of RTÉ and TV3 crews, news and feature journalists from the national newspapers, and a number of photographers.
The visits followed a consistent pattern. On arrival, there was a photographed welcome for us from the candidate and his/her supporters; a doorstep interview for the media’s benefit; a walkabout with the candidate canvassing votes on the streets of the town; a visit to some venue of local significance, perhaps a shopping centre, a hospital, a factory or a community centre; a visit to the local radio station for an interview; a session with the local press on local issues and to highlight the credentials and prospects of the local candidate; a cup of tea in the local hotel or coffee-shop to give me a chance to have a ‘word in the ear’ with local people; and finally a short motivational speech for the local election team. Then, back into the cars and move onto the next town to do much the same thing all over again … and again and again.
The journey between visits was for my briefing. Karen Griffin had put together an information pack for every visit. It included a summary of the local issues, and the position being taken on them by the Labour Party. The new by-pass road; the controversial traveller housing scheme; the speculation about the future of the local hospital; the Council’s plan for a waste/recycling centre at the edge of the town etc. On these short journeys, I read the cuttings from the local newspapers, absorbed their analysis of the election contest in that particular constituency, including any local polling, and familiarised myself with the strengths and weaknesses of the other parties and candidates. I also had to ensure that I caused no offence to our own candidates and supporters. Where there was more than one candidate, I had to prepare phrases which gave each equal emphasis; I needed to know the names of their spouses and to mention anything significant which may have recently happened in their lives, like a birth or a funeral. On these journeys, Karen also ran by me, the names and photographs of our local councillors, lest I forget a name during the canvass.
I had to be word perfect all the time. Modern media, in all its forms, now records everything. Political life is now permanently public.
I developed a good working relationship with the press corps covering my tour. They were, of course, suitably challenging and probing in their questioning. I was well prepared on the main news items and issues of the day, but they were also keen to test me with requests to respond to what other party leaders had said on any number of topics or to charges somebody (sometimes one of our own!) had made against the Labour Party just a few minutes previously. Accordingly, a portion of each journey was spent on the phone to our election headquarters, getting updated on the campaign, briefed on evolving issues and sometimes making final decisions on campaign tactics.
I have always loved canvassing – talking one-to-one with a voter about a public issue or a personal worry. But for the very same reason, I hated the canvass walkabouts: there was no chance to have normal interactions with people as the peloton of candidates, red jackets, election workers and media hustled down the street or through the busy shopping centres. They were largely for show, for photographers who often jostled to get their picture of the day, for our press people who fretted about getting positive coverage, for the six o’clock news. However, they did act as magnets for the concerns of the voting public and that made them important.
The messages that came our way were consistent: workers were worried about their jobs; parents were concerned about the future for their children; pensioners were worried that the State could discontinue paying their pensions. What was most surprising was that, unlike any previous election campaign I had been on, there was little talk now of local issues. Voters were worried about the future of the country.
On most streets the shops were empty. In the entire canvass, I rarely saw a customer actually buying anything in a clothes boutique, a sports shop, or in a furniture or hardware store. The only purchase appeared to be essentials in supermarkets and pharmacies.
It was a winter campaign and I picked up a heavy cold. My family doctor looked hopelessly at me,