Type: Speech

Opening Address by Labour Party Leader, Brendan Howlin TD to Party Away Day 2018 D Hotel, Drogheda, Co Louth Good afternoon, And thank you all for being here today. Over the course of today and tomorrow, we will be setting out and discussing some of the policies and campaigns that we will be working on…

Labour Party Chair, Jack O’Connor will address the Parnell Summer School, tomorrow Thursday 16th August from 11.30am on the subject of 21st Century Democracy. He will deliver the following paper, embargoed until 11.30am tomorrow. The paper outlines several key measures required in Ireland to deliver economic equality and justice for all including housing for all,…

Ladies and gentlemen. To Metro Éireann and the Keynan Institure for Ethics of Duke University, thank you for inviting me to speak at your intercultural writing and photography award ceremony. My 13 week old daughter features in the Irish Times today in an article written by my wife about her family’s obsession with Monaghan football….

Speaking on Dáil statements on Northern Ireland and Brexit, Labour Party Leader Brendan Howlin welcomed the publication at last of the White Paper by the UK Government, but warned that the UK can’t cherry pick the parts of the single market it most desirers, saying: “I would like to open my remarks by welcoming the…

On behalf of the Labour Party, I am delighted to have the opportunity to support this Bill. I thank Deputy Alan Kelly for allowing me to replace him in doing so. Most Deputies will know that I have been a strong champion for carers for the past 26 years. I have done a lot of…

Howlin calls for special summit of EU Heads of Government in September to copper-fasten the Irish border agreement before the October Council meeting Speech by Brendan Howlin TD on Post- EU Council Statements, Dáil Éireann Taoiseach, I said to you last week, that it is essential that Ireland insist on a deadline for the UK…

Speaking on the National Drugs Strategy, Labour Party Health spokesperson, Alan Kelly has said that we must take a health-led approach to the drugs issue. Speaking in the Dáil, Deputy Kelly said: “We should not be debating the new drugs strategy a year after it was launched.  It is kind of crazy.  There is so…

Taoiseach, this will mark your fifth EU Council meeting. It will also mark two years since the UK voted to leave the European Union.   Unfortunately, we can report that little progress has been made on addressing Ireland’s core outstanding concern.   The bullet proof backstop that was agreed last December has not been translated…

Remarks by Labour Party Leader Brendan Howlin TD in response to the address by Jean-Claude Juncker to the joint sitting of the houses of the Oireachtas, 21 June 2018 When the Irish economy collapsed in 2008, our National Economic and Social Council produced an important report on Ireland’s Five-Part Crisis. The five parts were banking,…

Remarks by Labour Party Leader Brendan Howlin on the Dáil motion condemning US immigration policy, 20 June 2018 At least 50 million people died in the Second World War. Entire towns and cities were reduced to rubble. Millions of people across Europe and elsewhere were displaced. But out of the ashes of this terrible conflagration,…

Speech by Labour Party Leader on Dáil motion on 25th Anniversary of the Decriminalisation of Homosexuality Dáil Éireann, 19th June 2018 We have moved within a generation from a time when gay men and women were an alien and shunned phenomenon to one where sexuality in all it’s expressions can be celebrated. The change has…

I want to start by thanking everyone in Labour Youth for all of their work in support of the Labour values of equality and justice. Thanks in particular to Labour Youth’s chairperson, Chloe Manahan, to James Joy and to all of the team who have organised this year’s summer school. Tom Johnson’s Democratic Programme, nearly…

Remarks by Brendan Howlin TD, Leader of the Labour Party (Ireland) Addressing the Scottish and Welsh Parliamentary Labour Party Meeting, 11.30am, Thursday 14th June 2018 A few years ago, it was fair to say that relationships on these islands—and British-Irish relations in particular—were at an all-time high. The European Union has provided us with a…

Comrades, James Connolly’s path to establish our party was not an easy one. For nearly twenty years, the Irish Trades Union Congress debated whether to establish a separate Irish Labour Party or combine our struggle with that of the British Labour Party. In 1911, Connolly engaged in public debates on the question with the Belfast…

Statements on Plastic and Packaging Pollution Dáil Éireann, April 19th 2018 I welcome the opportunity to speak to this issue.  As we speak, I have a Bill before the House on the prohibition of microbeads. It is before the committee.  On 28 March, we had a positive engagement with experts from NUI Galway, Galway-Mayo Institute…

Provision of Objective Sex Education Bill 2018 Dáil Éireann, April 18th 2018 CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY The objectives of this Bill are broadly in line with the recommendation on Sex Education of the Oireachtas Committee on the 8th amendment, on which I was the Labour Party representative, and we support it as we have supported the…

The first issue I wish to raise relates to the complexity of the data protection code. In Ireland we have chosen to retain most of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003, although we will in the future apply them only to cases involving national security, defence or international relations. For every other case, we…

Motion on the fodder crisis Dáil Éireann, April 17th 2018 I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate pertaining to the fodder crisis in the Dáil this evening.  I do so on behalf of the Labour Party.  My party leader, Deputy Brendan Howlin, is present as well as Deputy Sean…

We need to see a sense of urgency from Government on this issue and I did not detect that in the Minister’s speech today or in any of his contributions in the many housing debates we have had in this Chamber recently.  We seem to be going nowhere.  The Minister mentioned in his speech that…

Speech by Brendan Howlin Leader of the Labour Party at the launch of  #aNewRepublic Good evening, 99 years ago, the Democratic Programme of the first Dáil was published. On 21 January 1919 Tom Johnson presented the Democratic Programme to the First Dail just a few feet away from where I stand now. It was a…

Speech by Brendan Howlin TD Post- EU Council Statements Dáil Éireann 28th March 2017 A Ceann Comhairle, In the run up to the EU Council meeting last week the overwhelming focus was on Brexit and the proposals leaders were to discuss on digital taxation. However as the UK prepares to leaves the Union, we were…

Keynote Address by Brendan Howlin, Leader of the Labour Party at  public meeting on Brexit, 21st March, 2018 Good evening. It is a pleasure to welcome you all here to the Gresham Hotel to discuss the implications of Brexit for Ireland. About a year ago, we hosted a similar event in the Royal Irish Academy….

For me, repealing the eighth amendment is about trusting women. It is also about trusting men. I might also say that it is about trusting the electorate and legislators. That is what we are here to do. We are all honoured to be elected as Members of these Houses and it is our job to…

“Our Opportunity to change an Amendment that fulfilled the worst fears of those who opposed it and never fulfilled the dreams of those that supported it” Speech by Brendan Howlin TD, Leader of the Labour Party,  on Thirty-Sixth Amendment to the Constitution Bill. My party’s support for this proposal is well known.  We supported it…