SIPTU Election The Fourth Man pulling out?

national | politics / elections | news report Tuesday November 18, 2003 02:57 by Ellen McCann - SIPTU - beyond the Pale

Usually reliable sources reported at the weekend that the fourth candidate in the upcoming election for SIPTU Vice President is pulling out. The Dublin Airport official, Dermot O’Loughlin, had been nominated to stand.

Dermot has not been mentioned much, if at all, in the various reports and comments on Indymedia. He is one of the best and most independent SIPTU officials with a great deal of respect among members. He has a fighting record and has often been at odds with the higher floors of Liberty Hall.

It is for Dermot to explain the history of his emergence as a candidate. However there is an element to his bid that mirrors the Derek Delaney outing. Dermot was, knowingly or not, a protégé of the Workers Party as Derek was of the SWP. Dermot is no-one’s glove puppet but the spur for his stand came from the WP, who it appears were determined to have a ‘soft left’ candidate to run against Derwin, or, at least, to have a name strategically placed for future reference.

But it was never clear what Dermot’s policies were. No doubt, knowing Dermot, you could infer they were good. But his correspondence included not a single policy item. This was partly because, probably, as an official, Dermot was tied in what he could say. It’s called democracy. Also, the ‘soft left’ style in SIPTU has always been: he/she’s a good guy, never mind agitating on his/her real policies. I don’t know if Dermot is a member of the WP, but, as far as I’m told, his policies on major issues would not be the same as the WP. Again it is up to Dermot to speak for himself.

Anyway, taking Dermot, an honourable man, out of the picture, the fact remain that the WP were up to the same game as the SWP. Except that we expect better standards from the SWP and that the WP have a very different (unarticulated) strategy for SIPTU than Derwin and Delaney. It seems that Derek has the same policies as Des and that Dermot’s policies were to be unknown to the members. Did they differ from Derwin and Delaney? From Brendan Hayes? Nearer to the other two Ds I think.

It’s a bit on the strange side that the deadline for nominations was last Friday at teatime and there has been no announcement from SIPTU yet as to who are the nominated candidates? Are we looking at a two horse race?