The former Environment Minister Alan Kelly is to put his name forward as leader of the Labour Party in the wake of Joan Burton’s decision to resign, writes Dan Buckley.

The Tipperary TD, who is currently deputy leader of the party, made known his decision to enter the leadership race on the Late Late Show.

Deputy Kelly will be going up against former minister of state Sean Sherlock while Wexford TD Brendan Howlin has also expressed an interest but is understood to be unwilling to enter a leadership battle.

Speaking to host Ryan Tubridy, Mr Kelly said “I plan to run for leader of the Labour Party.” He described his party’s general election result as ‘disastrous’ and said he was sorry to see so many friends and colleagues lose their jobs.

However, he defended the decision by Labour in 2011 to enter coalition with Fine Gael. “We had no choice but to go into government, “ said Mr Kelly. “The country was on its knees.”

Seeking to explain the reason why his party went from 37 seats to seven, Mr Kelly said that while they performed well in government, the voice of Labour got lost along the way.

“We did not articulate it very well,” he said. “We concentrated on saving the country and we did not demonstrate to our supporters the fights we had in government. Everyone in Labour worked very hard and the decisions we made were the right ones but it was difficult at times.”

Describing himself as Old Labour and a social democratic, Mr Kelly lamented what he termed the ‘large element of populism’ evident in modern politics.

“ I believe in everyone working and contributing to society. I am traditional Labour but in modern day politics we have a large element of populism. We now have scene in the Dáil where a quarter of the people elected simply do not to govern, probably ever.”

He said that the reason Labour refused to go into government with Fine Gael on this occasion was because, having lost 30 seats, the party did not have a mandate. “The Fine Gael-Labour government was voted out of office,” he said.

Mr Kelly indicated that he thought the choice of leader would be decided by a collaborative effort on behalf of the Labour parliamentary party rather than a contest.

“It is going to be a collective leadership. It will be a team effort,” he said.

Alan Kelly to run for Labour Party leadership https://t.co/MlhegYFDaT pic.twitter.com/zuhLF5QWaF

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) May 13, 2016