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THE IRISH LABOUR party just had the worst general election in its history, five years after its best ever.
The party saw its representation in our national parliament fall from 37 to 7 – an 81% collapse.
Since its foundation in 1912, the lowest number of TDs Labour has had was also seven, at the 1932 election.
However, in a 153-member Dáil, that represented 4.53% of the seats. In the new 158-member house, Labour has just 4.43% of all deputies.
The party also got its lowest number of first preference votes (140,898) and lowest share of votes (6.6%) since 1987. However, that year it managed to take 12 seats, or 7.3% of those on offer.
There have been notable implosions throughout Irish political history, of course.
In 2011, Fianna Fáil fell from 78 to 20 seats. The same year, the Green Party lost all six of their TDs, and in 2007, the Progressive Democrats took a drubbing, losing six of their eight TDs.
But never before has a major political party gone from having its best ever showing to its worst ever, in the space of one election.
This graph illustrates the historic extent to which the party’s seat number fell off a cliff this year.
Of the 37 Labour TDs elected in 2011: four left the party in the interim (Colm Keaveney, Tommy Broughan, Róisín Shortall and Eamonn Maloney); seven decided not to run; and 18 failed to be re-elected.
This photo, taken on 1 March 2011, shows the new, 37-strong Labour parliamentary party:
And this is who’s left for Labour in the next Dáil:
While Labour suffered pretty much across the board over the weekend, the scale of the crash has been especially catastrophic in some constituencies, and among women.
In 2011, Labour had 10 poll-toppers. Four of them lost their seats this weekend (Joanna Tuffy, Eric Byrne, Derek Nolan, and Dominic Hannigan).
A further two retired (Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore), and one has joined another party (Róisín Shortall). Only three of the party’s strongest performers in 2011 (Joan Burton, Seán Sherlock and Willie Penrose) will be a part of the next Dáil.
In 2011, there were six constituencies in which Labour got two TDs elected (Dublin Mid-West, Dublin North-East, Dublin North-West, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-East, and Dublin South-West).
All six of them now have no Labour representation.
Furthermore, Labour has lost six of the eight women it elected in 2011, with only party leader Joan Burton and outgoing Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan remaining.
This could limit the party in presenting itself to the younger, diverse demographic which would be essential to its renaissance, and is a particularly cruel irony for a party that has always prided itself on being ahead of the curve on equality issues.
Given the scale of the collapse, it’s inevitable that Labour’s geographic spread has also greatly diminished.
It now has no deputies in the West or the Border area (although it didn’t in 2011 either), and only two in Leinster (outside Dublin).
In the circumstances, it has managed to retain a reasonably good distribution of Dáil representation, and has narrowly avoided being entirely confined to Dublin.
This could be crucial in providing Labour some regional bases from which to rally support and rebuild as a significant national party.
Notably, Labour no longer has any TDs on the south side of the capital. Where in 2011 it had representation in every Dublin constituency, now both its deputies come from north of the Liffey.
Beyond the sheer seat numbers, the political impact of this weekend’s defeat could be particularly significant.
In 1997, the gap was marginal. 43 years ago, Labour got 13.7% of votes and 11.8% of seats.
This is an imprecise measure, and will require more detailed analysis, but it suggests that Labour candidates were less transfer-friendly in 2016 than they have been for 43 years.
This would be worrying if it developed into a trend in future elections.
They also lost long-serving and senior deputies this weekend, including Joe Costello and Emmet Stagg.
Communications Minister Alex White was eliminated in Dublin Rathdown, and Ann Phelan, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, Kevin Humphreys, Kathleen Lynch and Ged Nash also failed to get re-elected.
In all, of the 20 TDs elected for the first time in 2011: 14 failed to be re-elected, two have left the party, and two did not contest.
From the Class of 2011, only Brendan Ryan and Alan Kelly have made it into the next Dáil.
Rays of hope
Perhaps the only relief for Labour from this election is that – believe it or not – it could have been worse.
As a group numbering less than seven, under Standing Order 120 (2) they would have had less opportunity to contribute to Dáil debates on a daily basis – crucial to gaining publicity and traction for their policies.
Avoiding that fate could prove essential to the party’s recovery.
However, it remains to be seen how long they will stay in those positions, and it’s doubtful Alan Kelly would be a popular leader among voters.
Their most senior cabinet ministers – including Brendan Howlin and Jan O’Sullivan – will also still be available to play a central role in the party’s renaissance, such as it might be.
Howlin performed particularly well, topping the poll in Wexford.
After being left destitute in 2011, losing all their TDs, including some government ministers, many observers wrote the Greens out of Ireland’s political future.
However, despite severe funding and organisational difficulties, having to fight for media coverage, and losing a court battle to take part in the first RTE Leaders’ Debate, the Greens managed to win two seats this weekend.
This was – in the circumstances – a stunning achievement, and may well provide encouragement for Labour as they look to pick up the pieces and plan their recovery strategy, starting with local elections in two years’ time.
However, the biggest danger now for the future of the party, is that their membership and candidate base might continue to be consumed by other parties on the Left.
In particular, the Social Democrats, who over-performed in this election and are not tainted by any involvement in a deeply unpopular government, could pose a serious threat to a Labour party now on the ropes, after a beating of unprecedented proportions.
Would have been nice to have even a single comment from a sex worker rather than Ruhama (an organisation rooted in Catholicism with a definite agenda) or the Gardai. Poor quality journalism
@Eoin Silke: Except this is about trafficked women who are being clearly exploited.
“The brothels used by these gangs are staffed almost exclusively by a transient workforce of sex workers trafficked into Ireland. ”
This isn’t about someone choosing to become a sex worker for whatever reason they choose. This is about people with no say in the process.
@Tricia G:
The quote
“The brothels used by these gangs are staffed almost exclusively by a transient workforce of sex workers trafficked into Ireland” is attributed only to “Sources with a knowledge of the investigations” which is meaningless in terms of evidence, any time I have tried to chase up similar statements in the past they turn out to be anonymous opinions with no factual basis.
I am a source with knowledge of the investigations, I even took that a step further by conducting my own investigations today and establishing that €1000 pw for self catering accommodation can be quite a bargain in many areas. Not only do you have my real name to go with that, you can find the evidence yourself on booking com and airbnb.
The only way to know an facts about coercive sex trafficking is to stop using it as an excuse for laws that harm and endanger everyone who sells sex (including coerced victims) and start to think of it, and investigate it, as the serious crime it is, on par with kidnap for ransom. So far, nobody ever seems to have even tried to do that, with the result that if someone is being coerced into selling sex there is little to no hope of anyone identifying and locating them let alone doing anything to help them.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/victims-of-the-same-fiction/
Legalisation and start demanding that our government starts treating us as adults.
@Robert Halvey: remember the article is about trafficked women who are not choosing to be sex workers but subjected to daily rapes by their ‘customers’ and violent coercion by the gangs controlling these operations.
@e: Amazing how people completely ignore the victims in all this. Even the article refers to them as sex workers, they’re not workers. They’re sex trafficking victims being horribly exploited by ruthless criminals who think people can be treated like property. Sadly I’m not even surprised some landlords are fine with what’s going on in their properties.
@Rui Firmino: look at the article again, there are no specifics from verifiable sources and unsubstantiated opinions expressed by an unverifiable and anonymous source.
The headline is spun into clickbait around what turns out to be a scary, but, currently, perfectly normal, charge for any self catering accommodation.
The only way to care about any victim is to go looking for the hard facts of their circumstances rather than blindly following expedient, agenda driven fiction for appearance sake.
@Gaye Dalton: You sound awfully defensive.
@Rui Firmino:
@Rui Firmino: good point. And a very big difference too.
@Brendan Harlowe:
Alternatively there is reality
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/victims-of-the-same-fiction/
Men, stop frequenting these places! The cops should arrest the Johns. The unfortunate women in these situations need our help, not our willies.
Remember folks, criminalising sex work facilitates trafficking. Current anti-sex work laws increase violence against sex workers and victims of trafficking.
Ruhama is NOT a trusted source.
@Conor McK: The Garda Protective Unit believes there are trafficked women forced into prostitution here. Are you saying that should be legalised?
@e: “ Then stop the trafficking, but what about the women who voluntarily do this?
Women should be free to do what they want with their bodies.
@e: Less opportunity for traffickers if there is already a legalised established trade. I don’t think anybody is advocating trafficking here.
@e: There are women forced into marriage.
Should we criminalise all bridegrooms?
Legal to sell, but Illegal to buy… Irish logic
@Stoic Savage: because historically women were blamed and charged. It was changed to blame the people soliciting (so that’s the pimp or the John), in order not to victim blame those doing it, as they often had no other choice. I agree if women want a safe space to engage in sex work it should be legal. But equally there are many women, either literally forced into sex work by threat of violence or for other reasons such as feeding addiction, social isolation or financial insecurity. It needs a whole government response rather than relying on charitable organisations to do these studies.
@e: The only organisation exclusively, and lavishly, funded to research the sake and purchase of sex is SERP at UCD which was founded by the same person who founded and lead the “Turn Off the Red Light” campaign, which aggresively demanded the current legislation over the opposition and concerns of people who sell sex.
So far, since they were founded, they seem to have limited their total consultation with current sex workers to 4, or possibly 5.
We cannot ever understand anything without real, objective and impartial research.
https://mymythbuster.wordpress.com/serp-ucd-transcript/
Open borders,cheered on by the likes of this publication,is a destroyer of Irish society.
This didn’t happen when Irish people went to mass weekly.
@ggg: You’re right. Back then the church looked after the sex on our behalf.
@ggg: Yeah the good old days when you could take advantage of a young woman and know that everyone would keep quiet for shame and she’d end up in a Magdalene laundry if she got pregnant.
@ggg: Yeah, they would just get raped by the priest later. Much better!
@Diarmuid Hunt: We’re talking about prostitution.
@west awake: ggg was talking about the time when all went to mass in Ireland, are you telling him that we’re talking about prostitution?
@west awake:
@west awake: So going back to what ggg was saying and my reply can you see why there would be less demand to pay for sex in a shame controlled society (not that it didn’t happen because it did then too) where it was easier to prey on women? Also how do we know that there was a lower percentage of prostitution per capita, do you think reporting on this topic to either Gardaí or the media happened as often back then?
This seems to be a load of nonsense centred on PR for Ruhama and trying to deflect culpability in the murder of Geila Ibram. away from the 2017 Sexual Offences Act.
Fact: The 2017 Sexual Offences Act forces women who sell sex to work alone, hold large amounts of cash and hide from Gardai to be able to make any money..
Fact: When you force women to work alone, hold large amounts of cash and hide from Gardai to be able to make any money you endanger them.
Fact: The 2017 Sexual Offences Act specifically targets the income source of people who sell sex
Fact: When you attack the only source of a person’s income you do them harm. If it is their last resort survival income you also threaten their life.
Fact: €1000 for one week for one person in self catering accommodation is not even slightly unusual, and, in some areas would be such a bargain you would be tempted to ask if the offer available above is limited to people selling sex, or can anybody apply?
5000?? Fcuking hell.
Once again we see a lucrative business handed to organised crime gangs who run it to squeeze the maximum profit to themselves with no regard for anyone else.
Why do these people have such a large market for their imported slaves ? Large enough to go to the trouble of importing them!
Clearly making the customer a criminal hasn’t destroyed their market – presumably far too few get caught.
To my eye the most unacceptable part of prostitution is the exploitation and control involved. If it is to happen (and it is not for nothing it is known as the oldest profession) it should be by choice and the prostitute should keep her earnings with only the taxman permitted to gouge her for a share. The current setup, while in principle it seems to protect the prostitute working solely for herself, in practice it seems that only the slavers get to operate.
Legalisation and licensing would seem to be the only way to wrest this business from the hands of organised crime and remove the incentive for them to cause so much misery.
Remember a few years ago seeing a young Eastern-European woman looking nervous at Dublin Airport with some late 50’s gangster-looking Dub. The whole scene looked wrong but didn’t know how to intervene. To this day I’m pretty damn sure this was some kind of trafficking situation but even with hindsight not sure what I’d have been able to do. Very sad.
Just wondering if the policy of allowing Ruhamma the ability to vouch for so called Sex workers still is a way to get Irish residency. In other words saying you have been trafficked into this country is a positive in order to gain residency. It’s hard not to be cynical with regards to so called asylum seekers. How are these people coming across our borders, have we no vice squad anymore leaving aside the end user, which is another matter ?
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