Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore defended Labour's record in Government at the opening of his party's national conference in Killarney last night,

He said the party had taken on the responsibility of fixing the problems facing the country in March 2011.

"Our country had a problem. Our country was broke. Fianna Fáil had handed its deeds over to the banks. And handed control over to the troika.

"What did Labour do? Did we walk away? Did we turn our back on our country and seek the safe ground of opposition? We could have done but that is not who we are. That is not in our DNA."

Mr Gilmore said that since entering Government Labour had been involved in the biggest negotiation in the history of Labour.

Economy growing

“Renegotiating the bailout from within. Taking a plan that was unworkable, taking it apart brick by brick and putting it back together into something that could work. And what has been the result? The result is that in two weeks’ time Ireland will leave the EU-IMF bailout.”

Mr Gilmore said the result was that the Irish economy was growing again. Three years ago 7,000 jobs were being lost every month; now 1,200 net new jobs were being created every week.

“Three years ago, when the EU and the IMF arrived here, our critics believed that what we have done was simply not possible. They did not believe that we would exit the programme at the end of 2013.

“And some of our opponents at times seemed to hope that we wouldn’t, because they are happier exploiting our country’s problems rather than solving them.”

He said Ministers knew on entering Government that the bailout as written was unworkable, but they also knew that without it Ireland had five months’ money left.

“What would have happened if Labour had not gone into Government? The answer is we would now be going into a second bailout. With more unsustainable debts, more job losses, less investment, and more cuts.

“What would the consequences of that have been for our country and our people?”

He said it had not been easy for the Labour members who have had to defend the party and the decisions the Government has had to take.

Sinn Féin

“I know what is said about us by Sinn Féin, who wanted the troika to go home and take their money with them, but they have yet to tell us where the money would come from to keep the schools and hospitals open, and to pay social welfare and pensions.

“What is their answer? Delay the hard decisions? Load more debt on to our children? Drag out the agony of the people who have no jobs, or who are stuck living day-to-day, watching every penny they spend and worrying about their debts.”

He said Ireland now had the second most progressive tax system in the OECD with the top 5 per cent of income earners paying 44 per cent of all income tax, and the top 1 per cent paying almost 20 per cent of all tax.

“Thanks to the campaigns that we ran for tax justice, the limits that have been set on tax reliefs mean that high earners are now paying more than twice the tax that they were paying before. Those who keep demanding a wealth tax don’t appear to notice that we have, in fact, taxed wealth. We have sought a contribution from the main reservoirs of wealth – property, high pensions, and financial assets. This Government is now, for the first time, imposing PRSI on unearned incomes.

“The Labour Party does not indulge in fairytale economics. This party has made real choices. We chose to reconstruct the bailout, not the chaos and destruction of default.

We chose to make hard decisions, not walk away. But we also chose to protect core welfare rates. We also chose to lift 330,000 low earners out of the USC net. We also chose to restore the minimum wage and reinstate the JLC system.”