Stockhole Lane, Clonshagh, Dublin Airport, County Dublin.
The two candidates who are contesting the election for a new Labour Party Leader – Alan Kelly TD (above left) and Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD at the second of four hustings..
Ballot papers will be sent to Labour Party members on March 15 with an April 3 closing date.
“Let’s make Labour sexy again,” exhorts @alankellylabour referring to his party’s failure to attract a youth vote. Agrees with a questioner that party needs to be more encouraging to women and make sure they occupy all central positions.
Labour Party leadership candidate Aodhán O Ríordáin speaking at the launch of his campaign in Dublin to be the next party leader. He will face off against Alan Kelly.
Labour’s Alan Kelly (centre) surrounded by supporters including his wife Regina O’Connor (front row, fifth from left), Labour’s Sean Sherlock and Duncan Smith (front row, ninth and tenth from left) and Jan O’Sullivan (front row, second from left) and Willie Penrose (back row, third from right) on the plinth this morning
“I am delighted to announce that I have been nominated to stand for leader of Labour. A huge thank you to all those who have supported me and especially the people of Tipperary for giving me their confidence once again as, without them, I wouldn’t be in a position to be here today.”
.@Labour is at a crossroads – we need a progressive, campaigning, energetic leader who has learned from the past & will build for the future with others who share our values – I am proud to support @AodhanORiordain for leader – for the future of @Labour & the future of Ireland.
My God but this is an embarrassing tweet.
Do we have to be so craven in the midst of the international face of hate?
Our Taoiseach never fails to let us down when dealing with @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/AUfYr0skjR
— Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (@AodhanORiordain) June 5, 2019
Aodhán Ó Riordáin, above, in the Seanad this morning and his Misuse of Drugs (Supervised Injecting Facilities) 2017 bill (top)
Earlier today.
Senator Aodhán Ó Riordáin’s Misuse of Drugs (Supervised Injecting Facilities) 2017 bill passed in the Seanad.
Of the move, Mr Ó Riordáin told the Senate:
“I just want to put on record An Cathaoirleach, if I might, the name of a man called Robert Keyes who died on the 8th of November, 2015, in St Audeon’s Park in Dublin, of a fatal overdose. When the person who came across his body rang the emergency services they said it was “just another junkie”.
“Now this man’s mother came forward recently, spoke about her son lovingly and caringly in the media, to say that nobody is a junkie in this country.”
“And what you’re doing today, minister, is to ensure, in this life-saving measure that we bring humanity back into our policy, our drug policy and we finally move beyond the situation where anybody would decide to dehumanise or to denigrate somebody with that disgusting term.”
“Everybody who is a citizen of this state is entitled to humane, compassionate treatment and if somebody is hopelessly crippled with an addiction, well they deserve the care and compassion of this state. And what this injection centre legislation is doing is providing that. That nobody else has to go to a park, or behind a skip or into an alleyway, or into a playground and inject themselves in such a harmful manner. Finally we will establish a facility that will ensure that people’s lives can be saved, that they won’t contract hepatitis C or HIV and that we can look on these individuals as people with names.”
“And maybe it’s time for a Names Project, that they have in the States, in terms of Aids. That in Ireland we could have a Names Project, that everybody who dies of an overdose, and we do have the third highest overdose rate in Europe. That maybe people who are affected by this and whose families are affected by this, people who approach me but won’t say it publicly, people who approach me and tip me on the shoulder and say, ‘my son died of an overdose’, ‘my brother died of an overdose’, that they can actually begin to speak about their names in loving terms.”
“Because they are not junkies, these are human beings who are being afflicted by addiction and this is the first step, along the Irish road to a proper tackling of this issue in a humane and compassionate way.”
From top: Environment Minister Alan Kelly (left) with Áodhán Ó Ríordáin; Mr Ó Ríordáin surrounded by his wife Áine Kerr and Labour supporters; and Mr Ó Ríordáin speaking to media at the count centre in the RDS this morning
Labour’s Áodhán Ó Riordáin has lost his seat in Dublin Bay North.
Independent TD Tommy Broughan, Sinn Féin’s Denise Mitchell and Independent Finian McGrath have been elected.