Mullingar is to host the first national conference of a political party, when the Labour Party holds its annual delegate conference in the Mullingar Park Hotel from March 27-29 next year. The conference will provide a significant boost to the local economy, with 1,200 delegates, observers, and journalists expected to attend the three day event.
Speaking in Mullingar last week, leader of the Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore, commented: “We are coming to Mullingar for two reasons. Firstly, we are keen to take advantage of the fine facilities here at the Mullingar Park Hotel. Secondly, we are coming to acknowledge the political achievements of Willie Penrose, TD, the Labour councillors, and the Labour Party organisation in Westmeath”.
He continued, “Mullingar has a long and historic tradition in Westmeath, but the organisation has really grown and developed since the election of Willie Penrose to the Dail in 1992. The highest share of the vote the Labour Party got in any county or city council election in the local elections of 2004, was in Westmeath. Some 25.14 per cent of the electors, more than one in four, voted for the Labour Party, returning six of our candidates to the Council. That was a remarkable achievement and a tribute to Willie Penrose, the quality of the candidates put forward and to the work put in by the local organisation”.
The Labour leader added that the party will be looking to Willie Penrose and his colleagues to repeat and improve on that performance in next year's local elections. Westmeath now shares a Dail constituency with Longford, as a result of the constituency revision prior to the last general election. Deputy Gilmore added that he had no doubt that Deputy Penrose and his team would bring their experience and expertise to help the development of the Labour organisation in Westmeath, particularly in regard to the local elections.
The Labour conference will take place just two months before the local elections, and will play an important part in the party's preparations for that contest. It will provide the party with an opportunity to finalise its policies for those elections and to showcase emerging candidates.
“The annual conference is a key event in the life of any political party. It provides an opportunity for me as party leader to deliver a keynote address, but it is also much more than that. It provides a platform for the ordinary rank and file members to put forward proposals, through their branches and constituency organisations, for new policies or for organisational changes,” concluded Deputy Gilmore.
