Ireland's Left-Wing Parties Agree To Merge PA 11/20/98 16:36 Copyright 1998 PA News By Chris Parkin, PA News Ireland's two main left-wing political parties, Labour and the Democratic Left, tonight agreed terms for a merger. The amalgamation proposal, finalised after two days of intense negotiations, is expected to be put to special delegate conferences of the two parties, to be staged on the same day next month. The new grouping will be called the Labour Party, and for a transition period be governed by a shared six-strong leadership. The present Democratic Left chief, former minister Proinsias De Rossa, will quit his Irish parliamentary seat and seek a place in the European Parliament as part of the merger deal. Talks aimed at forming a single party to challenge the more right wing and centrist Irish political forces of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats were initiated after Labour and the Democratic Left lost a share of coalition government power in last year's Irish general election. Closer unity of the left in Ireland was urged by former Labour boss and ex-deputy premier Dick Spring when he stepped down weeks after the nationwide vote. Irish Labour was founded in 1912, making it Ireland's oldest political party, on the inspiration of figures like James Connolly, later executed for his part in the 1916 Dublin Easter Rising against British rule, and workers' leader Jim Larkin. The party has shared in coalition governments with both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, as well as the Democratic Left. The Democratic Left evolved from the traditional wing of Sinn Fein, which stuck with politics at the start of the present stage of the Northern Ireland conflict. The party is now opposed to both unionism and nationalism as solutions to the problems of Ulster. They joined a coalition administration for the first time in 1992, and had two members in the partnership cabinet headed by Fine Gael.
