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Labour leader, Brendan Howlin, has said the party is considering running candidates in local elections in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\nLabour leader, Brendan Howlin, has said the party is considering running candidates in local elections in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
Mr Howlin said he had written to SDLP leader Colum Eastwood last week seeking clarification about a possible merger between Fianna F\u00e1il and the SDLP.<\/p>\n
Fianna F\u00e1il is currently in talks with the SDLP and is expected to run a number of candidates in next year\u2019s elections in the North.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the culmination of the Labour Party\u2019s national conference Mr Howlin said he would like to hold discussions with members of the SDLP to see how they \u201ccould construct a slate of candidates that would allow people who want to express Labour values to have the option of voting for Labour candidates\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Howlin said his party had worked with the SDLP \u201cas comrades\u201d within the Party of European Socialists for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are an awful lot of people in the SDLP who remain very loyal to Labour values,\u201d<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThat\u2019s what brought them into the SDLP in the first instance and I don\u2019t think they should be abandoned to simply have to join Fianna F\u00e1il.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a bizarre set of events last month Fianna F\u00e1il had to insist it had not selected any candidates to stand despite a member of the party\u2019s ruling executive maintaining Sorcha McAnespy had been chosen as a candidate to run in next year\u2019s local government poll.<\/p>\n
Flanked by frontbench Fianna F\u00e1il TD Eamon O\u2019 Cuiv and party senator Mark Daly, Ms McAnespy was unveiled as a Fianna F\u00e1il \u201ccandidate\u201d.<\/p>\n
But on the same evening as she was being unveiled as a candidate at a meeting in Omagh the parliamentary party said it had not selected anyone to run for election.<\/p>\n
Ms McAnespy claims party leader Miche\u00e1l Martin had personally told her she had been chosen as a candidate.<\/p>\n
In a speech to Labour party delegates in Dublin last night Mr Howlin said the Labour Party would step in to ensure a \u201cpluralist option\u201d was available to voters in Northern Ireland if the merger between the SDLP and Fianna F\u00e1il went ahead.<\/p>\n
The Wexford TD said the Labour Party wanted a \u201cNew Ireland\u201d where everyone on the island of Ireland had a decent standard of living.<\/p>\n
He promised to recall the New Ireland Forum, a cross-border body set up by the Irish Government in the 1980s to bring together a range of views on how to end violence in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n