Pat Rabbitte TD, the Labour Party leader, visited Ringsend recently. After lunch in the ‘Hobbler’s End’ he and former Labour Leader Ruairí Quinn paid a visit to the Community Centre, the home-from-home creche in Thorncastle Street, the ‘NewsFour’ offices and then went on to Cambridge Court. Pat was delighted to meet local people and commented on the friendly atmosphere in the area.

I asked him his view on the Green Party. He said that he would like to be able to offer the Irish people a Labour government but could do business with the Green Party as they had brought something important to Irish politics.

Pat Rabbitte said that no party had a monopoly on the environment and that he was concerned about global warming. “It is such a big issue,” he said, “and there is a responsibility on all parties to put forward policies that make sense on climate change.”

I asked him about his view on Fianna Fáil. “The present government have become leveraged on the side of the wealthy and the developers and left behind their original roots. They don’t listen to people and have grown remote.”

We spoke about the swing back to the left in South America and he responded that “The ideas behind democratic socialism have never gone away but you have to apply such ideology to the times you’re living in. In South America the people have voted for Chavez and others like him in different parts of the world.

“In Ireland now we very badly need a government that will focus on society and not just the economy. What has been happening here is that the sole focus has been on the economy.

“Many of the issues that have been neglected are those that make up the quality of life such as the health services, public transport, child care, good policing etc. These are the things that determine the quality of life for our people.”

Pat is pictured outside the centre with Mary Lawless, Ruairí Quinn, Mary O’Brien, Betty Bissett, Lorraine Brady, Gerard Egan, John Murphy and Marie Rutter.