This is a mean and cruel budget. Once again, it is those on low to middle incomes, and the poor who will take the biggest hit, people who bear no responsibility for the economic crisis caused by the greed of a wealthy elite. Writes Joan Collins TD, People Before Profit/United Left Alliance

A colourful and lively Spectacle of Defiance and Hope carnival protest took place today with youth and community groups from across the city from Ballyfermot to O’Devaney Gardens and Ballymun represented.

At a press conference today TDs from the United Left Alliance, Independents and Sinn Féin joined trade unionists calling for support for a pre-budget anti-austerity march this Saturday in Dublin.

The march called by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, and supported by ICTU, SIPTU, Unite, Mandate, the United Left Alliance, Sinn Féin, Independent TDs and a wide range of community and campaign groups, will assemble at 12pm, this Saturday November 26th in Parnell Square Dublin.

The recently established Alliance Against Austerity, who hosted the press conference, will also hold a mass public assembly directly following Saturday’s march, following the example of similar assemblies taking place as part of the Global Occupy movement and the mass protest movements in Egypt, Greece and Spain.

The new Alliance believes that austerity policies being implemented in Europe, the US and elsewhere in response to the Global economic and financial crisis are grossly unfair and are deepening the current economic crisis, and may lead to a further world-wide economic slump.

The Alliance and participants in the press conference are calling on the Irish government to abandon austerity policies aimed at low and middle income workers, and vulnerable sectors of society, and instead place the burden of the current economic crisis on the private financial sector and the wealthy in society.

The alliance is also calling for major direct state investment in job creation and the protection of the welfare state and public services.

This march will not be once-off event but will be a step towards a sustained campaign of popular mobilisation – demanding policies which put jobs creation, public services and the protection of the vulnerable ahead the profits of bank and financial elites.

Last week’s statement by Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin in which he attacked the decision of the Irish National Teachers Organisation not to cooperate with the exploitative JobBridge scheme is nothing short of scandalous.
At a time when the Labour/Fine Gael government have stood by as €700 million was gifted to unsecured Anglo bondholders, while the Government implement cuts to special education in the form of SNA cuts and slash the wages and pensions of new entrant teachers, it beggars belief that Deputy O’ Riodain would shed crocodile tears for young teachers in this way. JobBridge seeks to exploit young teachers seeking employment by taking them on 6 or 9 month contracts for their dole plus an additional €50. If the welfare of young teachers is the principle concern of Deputy O’Riordain and the Labour Party, they would immediately reverse the previous government’s cut in special class teachers, resource teaching allocation and shelve the planned class size increase rumoured to be part of the upcoming budget, which could see a cut of up to 1,500 primary school posts.
People Before Profit have been contacted by a number of INTO members in the constituency who are angry at the attack by Deputy O’Riordain. The INTO’s decision took place after a long debate within the organisation and was taken in consultation with young, newly graduated teachers. For Deputy O’Riordain to claim that “in effect, what they INTO have done today is to rob these people of their dream of teaching in an Irish classroom” is disgraceful. The fact remains that JobBridge does not address the issue of unemployment for primary school teachers and in fact decisions made by this current government in terms of class size and special education have worsened the employment prospects of the very teachers that Deputy O’Riordain claims to be concerned for.