“The parties of the centre are prepared to pour out money at a rate that is dizzying. I made a joke during the election that I hoped Labour would get into government to get some control of the public finances.”
Pat Rabbitte is well-schooled in the art of government formation. He was there in 1994 when the Rainbow coalition came together, and he was there too in 2011 when the Labour Party coalesced with Fine Gael after the collapse of both the economy and Fianna Fail. In the former government, he was a member of Democratic Left, while in the latter, he was a Labour cabinet minister. In between, he helped negotiate a merger of the two left-wing parties, while also serving a stint as the leader of the Labour Party.
As the thorny issue of government formation continues, Rabbitte joins Ian Kehoe to discuss why Labour should not enter government, if it should merge with the Social Democrats, and whether Sinn Fein can ever offer a true path to power.
