Martin addresses Tom Johnson Summer School

Addressing the recent Tom Johnson Summer School in Galway on the subject of how to build and grow the Labour party Cllr Keith Martin says that in order to grow the Labour party needed to move beyond the "comfort zone" of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Wicklow and Wexford.

"We are forever doomed to be a 20 seat party if we don't reach into new constituencies and breadth life into old ones. We dream of another "Spring Tide" of 33 seats when we should be aiming even higher to a day when we are the main party of government.

"A dream of 33 seats is to sell ourselves short, to ourselves, our own membership and to the country. As long as we are content to solidify our base we condemn ourselves to the doldrums. We should still be talking of coalitions with a rotating Taoiseach and eventually of Labour as a party of government in its own right."

Cllr Martin added that nationally Labour must be the watchdog on government and work to be an alternative to the government as a full party in its own right and that regionally the party needed to invest time and resources into all constituencies, especially in the north-west of Ireland.

Cllr Martin concluded that the government could not be trusted on health provision in the west of Ireland, stating that while Dublin had Breastcheck for 7 years, Mayo had only had it for several months and that the government had set about dismantling cancer services that already provided "excellent" services in favour of "so called centres of excellence."

Cllr Keith Martin's address to the Tom Johnson Summer School was a highlight of the school and has resulted in the Westport councillor being invited to address Labour Branches across the country including party leader, Eamon Gilmore TD's own Constituency Council in Dun Laoighaire.

Thomas Johnson (1872–1963) was an Irish nationalist and Labour Party leader. He led the Irish Labour Party in the United Kingdom Parliament. Later, after Irish independence, he was elected a TD for Dublin County to the first Dáil Éireann in the 1922 general election and was the leader of the Labour Party until 1927. As such, he was Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil of the Irish Free State, as Sinn Féin refused to recognize the Dáil as constituted. He is the only Leader of the Opposition from the Labour Party, or indeed from any party other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.