The People Before Profit Alliance condemns the collusion of Labour and Fine Gael in facilitating the passing of the Finance Bill. This bill gives legal effect to a budget that will devastate wages, public services and social welfare. No political party has a mandate to either pass or facilitate the passing of this budget.

People Before Profit / United Left Alliance candidate for Dun Laoghaire, Richard Boyd Barrett commented:
“For hundreds of thousands of people the reality of this Finance Bill is already beginning to bite with the introduction this month of the Universal Social Charge. Once again it is clear that this government’s operating principle, at all times, is to make ordinary working people pay for this crisis. It is too complicated to tax the obscene bonuses of the bankers who created this crisis but it’s a national priority to attack wages, social welfare and the minimum wage.

“We also need to be absolutely clear about this, Fine Gael and Labour have colluded with this government by allowing the Finance bill to be passed. You cannot oppose the bill out of one side of your month and facilitate its passing out of the other.”

Cllr. Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit and ULA candidate for Dun Laoghaire said
"The posturing by Fine Gael and the Labour Party over the Finance Bill almost puts Fianna Fail and the Greens to shame. The Finance Bill gives legal effect to the budget. Therefore you can’t be against the budget and at time express a willingness to ‘facilitate’ it passing through the Dail in a week. This is utter hypocrisy.

The Finance Bill 2011 puts into legal effect the measures that were passed by the Dail in late December of last year. All the major establishment parties, including the Labour party, want this bill passed immediately and have expressed willingness to facilitate this in the coming days.

Nicola Curry is a working mother of two who recently returned to education at UCD as a mature student. She qualified with a degree in social science, specialising in social policy. She also received a Masters Degree last year.