• Labour & Fine Gael's Household Tax will start at €100 but will rise to €1000
• They have 113 - don’t give the Government another TD
• Labour hasn’t delivered change - so elect Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party/United Alliance

Three years of austerity, four austerity budgets, and every year, every budget, the deficit and the crisis has gotten worse. The more they take out of the economy, the worse the crisis gets.

The oftentimes brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Chris Hedges summed things up: “The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat.”

Dublin West By-election an opportunity for people to cast verdict on Fine Gael and Labour government of austerity and broken promises

Yesterday the Government announced that it is going to establish NewEra, a body to manage the State’s shareholdings in semi state companies. The Minister for Finance said that the new entity would carry out ‘corporate governance’ of companies like the ESB, Bord Gais and Coillte.

After a year and a half, the Greek debt crisis is far from resolved. In fact, with Greece on the verge of a social explosion, a default and exit from the euro appears almost inevitable. The eurozone is threatened by an interlocking sovereign debt and banking crisis, compounded by near-zero growth. Capitalist leaders are in complete disarray. Competing national interests are a barrier to cooperative measures. socialistparty.net analyses the latest twists and turns of the eurozone crisis.

The dedicated staff at all levels in Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, should be forgiven if they are in a state of some confusion and great anger this morning. As a result of a huge effort by them involving innovation, imagination, dedication and cooperation, the hospital was recently rated by the Health Services Executive as having among the highest clinical standards in the country. Furthermore it is not only reaching its service targets for 2011, but is 4% over.

A by election to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Brian Lenihan is set for 27 October. The Socialist Party has selected Cllr Ruth Coppinger to contest it and will be undertaking a major campaign to win this seat.

Looking for work? Good news- courtesy of the government's 'Jobbridge' scheme, there's all kinds of full-time opportunities on offer. The Corner Bakery in Terenure is looking for a Bakery Assistant. The Landsdowne Hotel in Ballsbridge is looking for waiting staff. Axa Assistance is looking for a call centre worker in Athlone. You'll even get an extra €50 euro a week.

A spectre haunts Europe – the spectre of a default by Greece, Greece's subsequent exit from the eurozone and a break up of the eurozone. All the signs – economically and politically – are that key sections of the European establishment are increasingly coming to the realisation that this is now a real possibility.