The Labour Party Outline Policy: Health, Social Welfare
As adopted by the Labour Party Annual Conference, January 1969
| Date: | 1969 |
|---|---|
| Organisation: | Labour |
| View: | View Document |
| Discuss: | Comments on this document |
| Subjects: |
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Commentary From The Cedar Lounge Revolution
16th October 2017
Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.
This document joins others outlining policy from the Irish Labour Party at the beginning of the 1970s. The fact that Health and Social Welfare are combined largely under the same heading is interesting. However the Labour Party argues ‘that the community has the responsibility of providing a free medical health service for all citizens without distinction’. It also dismisses the ‘conservative government now in power which proposes to introduce free choice of doctor without fee for some 30% of the population. It does not accept responsibility for providing the middle income group with similar facilities’. The document is strongly in favour of community health care and is quite comprehensive addressing geriatric care, mental health and research. In terms of funding it supports expenditure funded by the state and is against ‘flat insurance based schemes’ due to their lack of redistributive effect.
Similarly with social welfare the party argues that ‘the role of social services is central to any democratic socialist programme’. And it continues ‘the objective of this social welfare policy is to secure for each person a basic standard of living in terms of income and services, thereby eliminating poverty from society’.
It argues for a Social Fund and a Department of Social Development which would be responsible for co-ordination of social services.
Notable is the unabashed language of democratic socialism.
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You can join this discussion on The Cedar Lounge Revolution
By: WorldbyStorm Mon, 16 Oct 2017 13:15:24
In reply to CL.
Hmmm.
Reply on the CLR
By: O'Connor Lysaght Mon, 16 Oct 2017 14:54:43
Two points, friends. Firstly, Labour’s No Coalition policy was not reversed at the 1970 Annual Conference; It was reversed at a Special Conference held at Cork the following December, originally called to discuss policy on what was then the EEC, but then having its subject changed to one of coalition. A number of our fellow anti-coalition delegates believed that had Noel Browne not precipitated a work out,, Coalition might have been defeated. I am not so sure.
Anyway, Paddy, you were elected to the AC at the subsequent (Galway) Annual Conference in February ’71, before being booted off it. The rest is history.
Secondly, to abandon pedantry, and indulge in a call for action, it is important to recognise that the threat to our neutrality comes from both the EU and from proposals to leave the EU to keep ‘our biggest (national) market’, Britain. If we simply stay in the union we will be under pressure to join its prospective army; but if we become, as it were, the pig in the middle between UK and USA, we will be under pressure to join NATO, far more a basic state power (people under arms than the EU is, as yet. this has to be recognised; neutrality in or out of the EU must be our slogan.
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By: Paddy Healy Mon, 16 Oct 2017 16:17:23
Thanks for the historical correction Rayner. Has anybody else published a book on this period except Purseil?
Now that you remind me……In Cork it was our intention to walk out AFTER WE WERE DEFEATED ON THE VOTE AND WE HAD BOOKED THE ROOM FOR THE MEETING in the hotel. However as a final appeal was being made by the leadership to return to coalition before the vote, Noel Browne and his close followers jumped up and walked out and we felt we had no choice but to join him!!! Nobody will blame us for believing that Noel’s timing was chosen to upstage us. This is particularly so as Noel was never opposed to coalition in Principle
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By: O'Connor Lysaght Mon, 16 Oct 2017 17:53:00
In reply to Paddy Healy.
I think it is probably in various coalitionist memoirs (B.Desmond, CCOB, et al),. Browne explained his walkout later as inspired, variously, by his need to catch a train and his need to have a pee. From his facial and body language when walking out, I thought he was being seriously political, if in what was a rather typical incompetent initiative.The Cork conference was, by the way, the result of the party leadership centre joining the right on the excuse that Charlie Haughty and mates might have been trying to get guns to supply the anti-imperial resistance in NI. The right (Tully, et al.) had, of course, been for coalition since the ’69 election. How far the centre were playing a double game before the arms crisis I don’t know. Immediately, the best of luck with the Pana meeting. You might drop by to Liberty Hall beforehand (5 pm) to get a copy of the prospective launchee, ‘Labour Lives in the Ywentieth Century.’
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By: Paddy Healy Mon, 16 Oct 2017 18:17:54
Thanks Rayner. Among us we sometimes had a conversation about Noel Browne. “Is he just totally naive or is he the cutest of them all” He was never against coalition in principle. he had the view that reformers should enter coalition with capitalist parties but should be prepared to pull the plug at an advantageous time. The biggest problem with implementing this strategy was that he insisted on telling this to the conservative parties iIN ADVANCE . Was he trying to ensure that he would never again be accepted into coalition after Clann na Poblachta and “The Inter Party Governmen”
Excuse my ignorance but what is “‘Labour Lives in the Ywentieth Century.’
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By: Paddy Healy Mon, 16 Oct 2017 20:51:00
In reply to Paddy Healy.
I thought the book to be launched might have been on the occasion of Jack O’Connors imminent retirement “Labour Still (Barely) lives Despite My Best Efforts”And we used to give out about Mickey Mullen!!!!!
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By: O'Connor Lysaght Mon, 16 Oct 2017 21:28:02
In reply to Paddy Healy.
Correction: ‘Labour Lives in the 20th Century.’ (Lives to rhyme with dives, not gives). As to Browne, I think it was naivety, bolstered by a belief in himself as a master player. As you remarked (to quote an earlier reformist than Browne), you don’t say these things, you just do them. Dick Spring would prove quite competent in this.
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