Pat Rabbitte is going to resign this afternoon
Aug 23rd, 2007 by Donagh
So he goes. According to RTE news Pat Rabbitte, leader of the Labour Party, is to resign this afternoon.
“Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte is expected to announce his resignation this afternoon.
In a statement, the Labour Party confirmed that ‘a major announcement’ would be made at a press conference at 3.30pm.
The Mayo native was first elected in 1989 as a member of the Workers’ Party and later served as Minister for Commerce, Science and Technology from 1994 to 1997.
The Dublin South West TD became leader of the Labour Party in 2002.”
Great, a leadership battle just in time for the new Dail session. Can’t wait. Do these elections ever end?
But who will replace him? Eamon Gilmore seems an obvious candidate. Brendan Howlin? Oh God, no…..
UPDATE:
He’s resigned and Politics.ie have the full statement.
Opening it up he says:
My six year term as Party Leader runs to October 2008. My staying on for another year would only make sense if I intended contesting a second term. It is not my intention to do so.
I’m sure Conor will have plenty to say about this bit:
For reasons of history the Irish Labour Party, uniquely in Europe, must thrive in the context of a very unusual configuration of political parties. However, Labour still dominates the social democratic space. The challenge predicted from Sinn Fein in, for example, North and West Dublin did not materialise nor did the one from the Green Party elsewhere. Labour has the experience, the tradition and the professionalism to capitalise on this in the lifetime of the new Dáil.
Politics.ie were first to break the story this afternoon, before the dead tree press checked the site out and found out!
Yep, you’re right there. Fair dues. Someone listening to the radio told me and then I checked out the RTE site, Irish Election and Politics.ie. Unfortunately in that order.
Nothing on it in any of the breaking news streams, although I know there’s journalists hooked up to politics.ie pretty much permanently.
sinn Fein and the Greens are to blame for the failure of the Mullingar accord, then? with that type of analysis, the Rabbitte is no loss.