This Thursday you can elect another Fine Gael or Labour Party backbench TD to add to their huge tally of 113. This would copperfasten the disastrous policies of austerity and bailouts , including more draconian cuts to Connolly Hospital.
On the other hand you...
Election campaigns involving former political prisoners seeking high office are commonplace the world over. What makes the Irish State unique, however, is that the current Presidential campaign is a contest, not to leave political captivity behind but to embrace it, and become a voluntary political...
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders? These mortgage holders, the majority of whom...
Joe Higgins is a Socialist Party TD for Dublin West and a long time activist in the labour and trade union movement. He is a fighter for workers, living on a workers’ wage.
I reject so-called solutions to the economic crises based on slashing public expenditure, welfare payments and workers’ pay. Instead I stand for a socialist Ireland based on democratic public ownership and control of the major industries and resources so that social need is prioritised over profit.
I can be contacted via email to joe.higgins@oireachtas.ie or at 01-6183370 Alternatively, you can contact me via facebook or twitter
Welcome to my website and blog, where I post statements on current affairs, reports on my campaigning work as well as blog posts analyzing the key issues of the day from a left and socialist perspective.
This Thursday you can elect another Fine Gael or Labour Party backbench TD to add to their huge tally of 113. This would copperfasten the disastrous policies of austerity and bailouts , including more draconian cuts to Connolly Hospital.
On the other hand you could elect Councillor Ruth Coppinger. By doing so, the people of Dublin West would spark a major national debate on the Government’s policies; on how unemployment, emigration of our youth, consumer spending and business failures are all getting worse; on how austerity is killing economic potential...
Election campaigns involving former political prisoners seeking high office are commonplace the world over. What makes the Irish State unique, however, is that the current Presidential campaign is a contest, not to leave political captivity behind but to embrace it, and become a voluntary political prisoner for a seven year term with the option of lobbying to continue the incarceration for a further seven years
The Constitution lays out the terms of imprisonment. Article 12.9, ‘The President shall not leave the State during his term of office save with the consent of the Government.’...
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders? These mortgage holders, the majority of whom are ordinary people with partners and families, are swamped by negative equity and monthly mortgage payments that devour the bulk of their incomes. The Minister merely regurgitated the Keane report, a banker’s charter written by bankers.
The Government’s attitude to the victims of ruthless...
The extensive leaks from the report of the Keane group on distressed mortgages will be greeted with bitter disappointment by the 95,000 homeowners in mortgage difficulties, of whom 40,000 or more are in arrears of more than six months. While there may be a few speculators among these, the vast majority are victims of the greed of developers and Irish bankers, facilitated by European bankers and speculators.
They gouged from ordinary workers who needed a home those obscene prices and the massive monthly mortgages are now creating a major crisis as workers lose their jobs and experience...
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.
This means more patients than was thought possible are being treated resulting in shorter waiting lists and less suffering...
Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown is a vital acute facility for 333,000 people from Meath to west Dublin and Kildare to north-west Dublin. Recently the HSE demanded a costing on what it would save the hospital to go from a 24-hour accident and emergency service to a 12-hour service. The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, stated at the hospital on Monday there was no such plan. We accept that for now and will park it.
Today, however, there was devastating news. Staff in the hospital received a memo stating that 12 of 31 beds in the acute Laurel ward are closed with immediate effect...
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.
We are told that NewEra will advise on, and oversee, a restructuring of the semi states and will work with the Minister for public Service and Reform on the sale of assets.
In reality NewEra is being set up to privatise these public enterprises. That is crystal clear from the Fine Gael document dating...
In June the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, was in Washington DC and held talks there with the International Monetary Fund and with the US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, on Ireland’s financial crisis.
The Minister made headlines in the world’s financial media and got massive coverage in the Irish media when he declared that the Irish government would force unguaranteed bondholders in Anglo Irish Bank to take the hit for their gambling excesses in Irish and international property through that bank. The total amounts of these bonds came to €3.5 billion and the Minister...
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders?...
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders?...