LABOUR SENATOR MARY Moran has hit out at the party after a message was sent to all its trade union members to join a ‘monster canvass’ for her running mate in Louth.
The canvass is being organised by Labour Trade Unionists for the party’s super junior minister Ged Nash in Louth tomorrow, with a bus being laid on to pick up members from Dublin and take them to the constituency.
An email, seen by TheJournal.ie, states:
Ged Nash has been at the forefront of the party’s achievements for workers’ rights and ensuring our core values of fairness and decency at work are integral in Government policy.
It cites the sitting TD’s work establishing the Low Pay Commission, restoring register employment agreements, legislating for collective bargaining and commissioning a report on zero hour contacts.
The email makes no reference at all to Moran, who is running the northern end of the constituency. She was angered by her exclusion and claimed is “another example of the ‘old boys club’ at work”.
Asked if she thought her exclusion amounted to ‘sexism’, Moran said she agreed that it did. She added:
I just feel that this goes against everything that was agreed and I think it’s grossly unfair for a party that’s promoting equality that this is the way things have gone.
Labour rejected charges of sexism and insisted it was satisfied with the level of support it had given to the senator.
But Moran said there had been other examples of her being excluded, citing Tánaiste Joan Burton’s interview on local radio LMFM in the first week of the campaign in which she mentioned Nash repeatedly, but made no reference to Moran.
“I made it known that this wasn’t on,” Moran said. “I was told: ‘Oh sorry it won’t happen again.’”
However she said that when the Tánaiste visited Drogheda’s Boann Distillery on 4 February to launch Labour’s jobs plan, she was not allowed to speak at the event.
There was the three Labour party people and the owner of distillery and he introduced Joan, who introduced Ged, who spoke and that was it. I thought: ‘Why am I sitting here?’
Moran said she felt this was “far from the equality” that Labour consistently talk about.
A Labour spokesperson said that Labour Trade Unionists is an autonomous group within the party, and insisted: ”We’re satisfied with the level of support we have given to Senator Moran.
It is the case that she was involved in the launch of the jobs strategy in Drogheda. She’s one of a very small number of candidates who have had any involvement in the launch of our policy positions.
The spokesperson added that on the same day as the launch, Burton visited Dundalk to canvass with Moran and, as a result, the senator “got considerable profile in the media from that visit”.
They said that given Labour’s record of promoting equality over the last five years the charges of sexism “don’t stack up”.
The spokesperson also claimed that Labour Women had offered to canvass for Moran some weeks ago but that she pulled out of this “late in the day”.
Moran denied this happened and said an offer was made before Christmas but that she was unavailable on the specific date, had let Labour Women know this and no alternative date was offered.
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