Collapse: How Labour went from boom to bust
From Inside Politics with Hugh Linehan by The Irish Times
April 3, 2026 · 44 min
About this episode
The episode explores the rise and fall of the Labour Party in Ireland, focusing on their coalition with Fine Gael and the consequences of their decisions during an economic crisis.
Inside Politics is coming to Galway in May for a live recording. Get your tickets here . When Labour came to power in 2011 Ireland was in the depths of an economic crisis that had several more years to run. Their coalition with Fine Gael spent the next five years struggling to fix the economy while satisfying the EU and the IMF, who had bailed us out. But it was Labour, led by Eamon Gilmore to its greatest ever number of seats in that election, who bore the brunt of voter frustration over the deep cutsLinehanx increases that the government then imposed. The party was decimated in the next election and voters, particularly of the working class, never fully trusted the party again. So why did Labour get the blame? Could Gilmore and Joan Burton, who succeeded him in 2014, have done things differently? In this series Pat Leahy and Hugh Linehan relive the fateful events and decisions of that era and, a decade on, take a fresh look back at Labour’s collapse. In episode one they look at Eamon Gilmore, how Labour fought the 2011 election, the formation of the coalition with Fine Gael, how one of Labour’s key promises to voters was abandoned without a fight, and how the seeds…
People in this episode
Host: Hugh Linehan
Topics covered
- Labour Party
- Irish politics
- economic crisis
- coalition government
- voter trust
- political decisions
- historical analysis
Keywords
- Labour Party
- Eamon Gilmore
- Joan Burton
- economic crisis
- coalition
- voter frustration
- political history
- Ireland
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Labour, Fine Gael, EU, IMF, The Irish Times
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