And a warm welcome from the centre of Ireland, the heartland, the Lake County….
The Mullingar Park hotel is alive with perhaps a few less than the 1,000 delegates expected in Mullingar this weekend. Motions this evening have included social and family affairs, education and agriculture.
Eoin has an overview of the motions thus far and anything noteworthy that has cropped up.
The mood in the hotel is buoyant, Labour are topping polls at the moment and there is much talk of becoming a viable third option for Ireland’s voting public.
Local TD Willie Penrose is being celebrated, in some sense, this weekend. Penrose is one of the safest Labour seats in the party, delivering the majority of votes when called upon and should, in the words of Simon McGarr, “be sliced up thin, like Lenin’s brain, and sent to all the rural Labour outposts to study how to win and hold a seat outside a city”. As Labour spokesperson for Enterprise, Trade and Employment he delivered a damning speech on the current economic crisis facing the country.
Noteworthy in Penrose’s speech was his mention of the all-too-common comparisons drawn between the current economic situation and that of the 1980s. It is a somewhat lazy comparison; Penrose rightly pointed out that emigration in the 1980s was a viable and fruitful option, not so today. The experience of prosperity was also mentioned by Penrose, an experience alien to people in the 80s, now a nightmarish recent memory.
The economy will, no doubt, dominate this weekend’s affairs in one way or another. Also present are motions on the environment. A scheduling clash may take the wind out of the Labour Party’s environmental proposal’s sails as Eamon Gilmore televised speech at 8.30pm tomorrow evening clashes with worldwide Earth Hour, also scheduled to take place at 8.30pm worldwide. Though Earth Hour is a somewhat token gesture in the fight to reduce carbon emissions it attracts press coverage both anectodally and in more serious forms.
That’s it for the moment, there will be more to follow tomorrow when things start to heat up ahead of the Leader’saddress. If we don’t go home and sit in darkness, that is.
Ciara
