Budget Day Protest in Tralee
A significant start of a new resistance movement was evident in Dublin on Saturday, November 27th when 100,000 trade unionists, community and political activists marched
November 28, 2010
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A significant start of a new resistance movement was evident in Dublin on Saturday, November 27th when 100,000 trade unionists, community and political activists marched
Six billion in cuts in this year are intended to pay for fast and loose spending of the Irish and European banking gamblers. The cuts, involving 15 billion over four years,which in reality will take out 10% of GDP, will tear the heart out of the country, turning recession into wholesale depression. To add insult to injury, the interest charged on the IMF package could be as high as 10 billion per annum, taking a huge tranche from money that could be put into helping those least able to deal with the economic crisis. You can’t take that sort of money out of the economy without causing a downward spiral of recession.
Make no mistake. The EU/IMF are giving this aid package to allow the Irish Government pay the Banks, to pay the Bondholders – primarily the European banks who lent to Anglo and the other banks that have brought us to this mess. The Irish taxpayer will be paying in blood to save the billionaire financiers. They lent money recklessly to the Irish banks, who lent money to reckless developers. This is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the weakest in this society to the corporations and billionaires that played fast and loose in the investment markets. They took the gambles and now they, rather than the Irish taxpayers should lose out.
Working people, who struggled to buy houses in the property boom, who fell into negative equity prices dropped are now facing tax hikes and property taxes. The blame for this crisis can not be laid at the door of the Irish working class. It cannot be put on social welfare recipients, on minimum wage workers, on students or on public sector workers. Yet the four year plan is targeting these very same people.
The newly-formed alliance of existing parties United Left Alliance, launching its website has said it will lead a campaign of sustained resistance on the streets.
The ULA has said it expects to run around 20 candidates in the election.
Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins said that it is his view that there is no need for cuts, adding that working class people should not be expected to pay for the mistakes of the wealthy.
Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit says "it would heavily tax the wealthy as an alternative to borrowing. Ireland’s super rich have caused national humiliation, he said.
It has called for a 24-hour strike of all workers to end what it calls the ‘robbery of the people’.
The Alliance’s website can be found here:
Read the ‘United Left Alliance Statement’ below as an attachment
To read the leaflet in full: Download attachment below
The newly formed United Left Alliance (ULA) which involves the People Before Profit Alliance, the Socialist Party & the South Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group, is opposed to the governments’ bailouts and the slash and burn policies which are only making the crisis worse. In the general election we aim to provide a real alternative to the establishment parties as well as Labour and Sinn Fein, who also accept the capitalist market and refuse to rule out coalition with right wing parties. The approach of a Fine Gael / Labour government in power would not be fundamentally different than this government.
The ULA will be standing candidates throughout the country and we are inviting all people, campaigns and groups that want to fight for real change and who agree with our demands to become part of the Alliance.
The United Left Alliance (ULA):
1. Rejects so-called solutions to the economic crises based on slashing public expenditure, welfare payments and workers’ pay. There can be no just or sustainable solution to the crisis based on the capitalist market. Instead we favour democratic and public control over resources so that social need is prioritised over profit.
People Before Profit Alliance Candidate for Dublin South Central Cllr Joan Collins released the following statement calling for support in tomorrow’s protest outside the Dept of Finance @12.30 on Merrion Square.
It appears that the government is lumbering towards a collapse – whether before the new year or in mid to late January. They should go and go now.
They are squatters in Dail Eireann, they squandered the Celtic tiger, cut taxes for the rich and neglected the health service and education. They have lied and cheated their way to keep their grimy hands on the mercs and perks they cherish so much.
Working class people across the country are dying for the chance to throw them out. We’ve been waiting too long.. We need to tell them that they are a poison at the head of the country. Their plans to appease the IMF and the European Central bank will devastate the incomes of ordinary people across the country and will slash the social supports that are desperately needed when thousands are falling out of work.
It appears that the government is lumbering towards a collapse – whether before the new year or in mid to late January. They should go
A FAIR AND JUST SOLUTION TO IRELAND’S CRISIS STILL POSSIBLE BUT MASS PROTESTS NEEDED URGENTLY
In a statement, the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) has said that the arrival today of IMF/EU officials and imminent intervention of these bodies into the running of the Irish economy, would make a bad situation worse and accelerate Ireland further down a disastrous path of neo-liberal ‘shock therapy.’
PBPA said that the ‘free’ market economic doctrines championed by the IMF/EU were precisely those that had been pursued by the Irish government over the last ten years and were the same as those that had wrecked the international economy.
PBPA said that more intense doses of the same doctrine would cause intense suffering for ordinary Irish people and further undermine the possibility of genuine economic recovery.
PBPA said the Irish government had sacrificed Irish democracy and economic well-being on an altar of ‘free’ market profit and greed.
PBPA said there was now an urgent need to mobilise Irish civil society onto the streets to drive the government out of office and stand up to the ‘vultures and bullies’ of the IMF and EU.
The Kartels, The Dukes & Special Guests Saturday, November 13 at 7:30pm Scotts Bar Dun Laoghaire People Before Profit Fundraiser Gig: Featuring live music from
FEES WILL HURT WORKING FAMILIES NOT THE SUPER-RICH
In a statement the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) has said it will participate in today’s national student demonstration against government plans to re-introduce student fees.
PBPA rejected as “cynical; and “dishonest” government propaganda on the issue of fees and said that proposals to double third level registration fees or at some point to fully re-introduce student tuition fees will hurt working families not the super-rich.
PBPA said that the way to deal with unjustifiable subsidies to the super-wealthy was to dramatically increase income tax for those earning in excess of €100,000 and impose other wealth taxes, rather than introduce fees which would only hurt working families whose incomes were marginally over the thresholds to qualify for third level grants.
PBPA said education was a right not a privilige and that students were showing the way in taking to the streets against the government’s unjust and suicidal economic policies.
Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance said: “Today’s protest is a vitally important. If the government gets away with doubling the registration fees or fully reintroducing tuition fees, it will once again be hard-working families that will pay the price not the super-wealthy as they falsely claim.
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