SPEAKING AHEAD OF this morning’s Cabinet meeting, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn said he resents how Eamon Gilmore was treated by the Labour party.

It was not the “Labour way” he said, criticising those who placed the motion of no confidence for not having the “decency or courage” to contact the former leader themselves.

“The motion of no confidence was suggested after he decided to resign.

He was due the courtesy… by being the most successful electoral leader of the Labour party… of one of the eight to actually have the courage to pick up the phone and say this is what we are doing.

Quinn refused to be drawn on who the next leader of Labour will be, adding that he did not want Gilmore to step aside.

“I didn’t want him to resign. By his own standards, he felt he had not maintained the level of support that met the bar he had set himself.”

He also insisted that Gilmore’s resignation will not hold up the business of Cabinet.

“We have large programme of reform that will proceed,” he concluded.

Reporting by Nicky Ryan

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