Rabbitte backs role for private firms running public services

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday May 12, 2003 18:55 by Labour move to Right

The Labour Party must be more flexible about accepting a greater role for private firms in delivering public services, the party's leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, has declared.

Indicating a significant change in the party's attitude, he said the public were more interested about the quality of services, rather than who provided them.

In his first conference address as party leader, Mr Rabbitte told 1,000 delegates in Killarney that Labour had not always acknowledged the increase in the number of middle-class voters.

"Modern citizens as taxpayers are often more conscious of themselves as consumers and customers than they are preoccupied with the ownership structures of any given enterprise," he said.

"As a result of wider participation in education, there are now hundreds of thousands of people who enjoy, or aspire to, middle-class lifestyles," he declared.

"That doesn't mean that they are lost to the Labour Party unless we act and talk as if they were. We have to adapt to the new Ireland that we ourselves helped to create," he went on.

Voters wanted fair health insurance from the Voluntary Health Insurance and BUPA, but, he told The Irish Times, they were not concerned about whether the VHI was "run publicly, or privately".

In a part of his speech deleted because of lack of time, Mr Rabbitte made it clear that teachers, CIÉ workers and health workers must all embrace changes.

"Labour cannot make transport policy only for transport workers, although their input is vital. We cannot make education policy only for teachers, though their input is essential.

"We cannot make health policy for doctors, although to exclude their contribution would be unthinkable," he had written.

Yesterday, however, he said Labour's future attitude would be decided on a case-by-case basis, citing the sell-off by Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats of Telecom Éireann.

The sale to the Valentia consortium, which includes Tony O'Reilly, had not improved competition and it had left the Government with no levers to speed up the establishment of an Internet broadband network.