Sunday, July 3, 2011
From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come
Monday, May 30, 2011
Release of Garda exposes Corrupt Two - Tier 'Justice' System
Last Thursday (May 26), Dean Foley was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, with 12 months suspended, for assault. Foley, a serving Garda at the time of the attack, was convicted for a brutal unprovoked attack on Stephen Murphy in Cork. Foley knocked Murphy unconscious and inflicted a series of horrific injuries on him. As a result, Murphy suffered bleeding to the brain, broken teeth and broken bones to his face.
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Convicted Garda Dean Foley |
Victim of Garda assault at student anti-cuts demo |
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Pat O'Donnell after Garda Assault |
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Sunday, January 23, 2011
éirígí Ard Fheis takes Place in Belfast Today
The annual national conference was set to take place in Belfast on December 4 last but had to be postponed due to the treacherous weather conditions then prevailing across the country. The Ard Fheis will now go ahead at the same venue, the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich cultural centre on Belfast’s Falls Road.
éirígí general secretary Breandán MacCionnaith said: “It was unfortunate but absolutely necessary that we had to postpone the Ard Fheis last month. However, the format and matters to be discussed on Sunday today will be the same."
“It is significant that éirígí is holding its Ard Fheis in Belfast. The birth of Irish republicanism was announced in June 1795 on Cave Hill above the city by Wolfe Tone, Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Russell, Samuel Neilsen and a number of other United Irishmen."
“Today, the struggle against partition and for Irish independence and reunification continues to be a 32-county one. Equally, the struggle against economic injustice and for socialism in Ireland must also be a 32-county one."
“Our objective is a sovereign, democratic, socialist republic for all of Ireland. The current crisis within capitalism in the Twenty-Six Counties demonstrates yet again the inherently unjust and anti-working class nature of that failed system throughout Ireland and elsewhere. Equally, the budget adopted at Stormont at the behest of Westminster demonstrates the subservient, colonial nature of that administration."
“At the Ard Fheis, éirígí will be putting forward our alternative vision for a new independent country with the formal launch of the party’s major policy paper on socialism in Ireland."
“When éirígí was established in 2006, it based its project on building a solid foundation for socialist republicanism in Ireland. The task ahead of us is to bring others to the view that cosmetic tinkering with the two partitionist, economic, social and political systems in this country cannot bring about meaningful change to the lives of working people."
“We firmly believe that that, by launching this document, many others will see that the basis for equality lies in the establishment of a completely new social, economic and political order throughout Ireland.”
MacCionnaith continued: “éirígí will be also laying out its plans for the time ahead and encouraging all republicans and socialists to get actively involved in a rejuvenated struggle for national independence and socialism.”
Saturday, January 22, 2011
From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come
Four and a half years later, the party has reached another significant milestone with the publication of a major ideological policy paper. From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come is not only an important development for éirígí as a political party; it is also an important for the development of socialist republicanism in Ireland.
From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come does not simply reject capitalism in all of its forms; it also sets out éirígí’s vision of an alternative society based upon the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
Over the course of the last century many Irish republicans have come to the conclusion that an Ireland which remained capitalist post a British withdrawal would not really be free at all. And éirígí is proud to follow in that tradition, to follow in the footsteps of organisations such as the Irish Socialist Republican Party and the Republican Congress and of individuals like Peadar O’Donnell, Liam Mellows, Constance Markiewicz, Frank Ryan and Mairéad Farrell.
However, From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come is not just about éirígí taking its place in Ireland’s revolutionary tradition. It is also about changing the parameters of debate in republican Ireland and beyond. It is about building the theoretical foundations for a powerful movement in Ireland that will be uncompromisingly republican and socialist. A revolutionary republican movement that has class politics at the core of its analysis, a movement that will never again commit the mistakes of militarism, constitutionalism or the pernicious notion that labour ‘must wait’.
The process by which éirígí developed and adopted From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come was itself an example of the type of participative democracy that éirígí wishes to see at the heart of a new socialist Ireland. This process saw an initial draft debated by the entire membership within their respective local Ciorcail (branches). Each individual member was afforded the right to suggest deletions, additions and amendments to the document.
Once the first round of discussion had been completed a second draft of the paper, based upon the feedback received from the membership, was drafted. This second draft was then circulated to the entire membership and again debated within the local Ciorcail. The feedback from this second round of discussions informed the drafting of the third and final draft of From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come.
For the first time a dispersed voting procedure was used which saw members voting at meeting of their local ciorcal on whether to adopt or reject the paper. As with all major strategic and policy issues each member of the party had an equal vote. The result of this vote saw the paper being unanimously adopted.
While the process of developing and adopting From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come took a number of months to complete, it was time well spent. éirígí’s unique decisions-making process, as contained within Bunreacht éirígí, places consensus building at the heart of a process of decision making.
Many Irish republican and socialist organisations are based upon outdated and anti-democratic ‘top-down’ models of decision-making. Such models are inherently unstable, leading to leadership cliques and internal divisions. Organisations which use delegate based organisational models, pressure cooker conferences and artificial deadlines to make decisions are invariably corrupted by leaderships who think they know better than their memberships.
Announcing the public launch of From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come, cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson said: “Ireland today is at a crossroads. We can continue down the path of capitalism and imperialism that has partitioned our country, exploited our population and impoverished our communities or we can strike out for a better future based upon national independence and socialism.
“From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come correctly asserts that the only option that will work for the vast majority of the Irish people is that of independence and socialism.
“There can be no compromise between the exploiter and the exploited. It is a matter of their prosperity or ours – the slave owner and the slave cannot be prosperous together.
“éirígí is under no illusions as to the mammoth scale of the task that has been set out in this document. It is the same task that confronted the men and women of 1916 and it is the same task that confronted the thousands of republicans who fought the struggle over the last 40 years – it is about nothing less than the re-conquest of Ireland by the working people of Ireland.
“We need to start small while thinking big. We need to organise in our communities, in our workplaces, in our places of education, in our homes and on our streets. We need to make the argument with every single person who has no vested interest in the current rotten system that there is a better way and a better destination. There is a system that the working people of Ireland can have a stake in – that system is socialism and the time to start fighting for that system is now.”
To read From Socialism Alone Can the Salvation of Ireland Come click here
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Right to protest asserted on the streets of BÁC
For the third time in eight days, éirígí activists in Baile Átha Cliath were again on the streets last night [Tuesday] in opposition to the right-wing economic policies of the Twenty-Six County government. On this occasion it was as part of a multi-organisational anti-capitalist block which formed part of the Right to Work demonstration outside Leinster House. As in excess of 350 protesters gathered at the Wolfe Tone monument on Stephen’s Green the Garda helicopter rattled noisily overhead and dozens of Gardaí watched on.
Following a number of short speeches the march attempted to set off, only to find the road blocked by a line of Gardaí and four Garda horses. With typical arrogance the Garda could provide no adequate explanation for blocking the free passage of a political demonstration.
Undeterred by the Garda tactics the crowd surged forward to chants of ‘Whose Streets? Our Streets!’, before making its way to Anglo Irish Bank Headquarters, just two hundred metres away. Outside the bank a number of speakers addressed the crowd including Cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson. The protest then continued onto Dawson Street before joining the Right to Work rally on Molesworth Street.
Even the constant rain could not dampen the spirits of the estimated 1200 people in attendance. So much so that even after the Right to Work rally has finished up to 150 people made their way closer to Leinster House to chants of ‘Regulation Doesn’t Work, Let the Banks Burn!’.
Once at the Garda lines the protesters were addressed by Brian Leeson, who encouraged people to show that they were not intimidated by the Garda tactics of recent days. With chants of ‘Whose Cops? NAMA’s Cops!’ the crowd did just that. Despite provocation from the Garda the protesters remained disciplined and dignified before returning to the other end of Molesworth Street and dispersing.
Speaking after the demonstration éirígí spokesperson and Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan said, “Tonight was another important step in building resistance to the NAMA republic. With each passing week the numbers of people turning out to these protests are growing. Nobody should think that we are going to win this battle in the next week or two. It is going to take months and years of hard work to reclaim this country from the golden circle, but it must be done.
“Each and every one of us need to make it our business to get our friends, families and workmates onto the streets. It’s a simple fact that 90% of the people of this state have everything to gain and very little to lose by a radical change in the way that wealth and power are distributed.”
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Email: eirigimembership@gmail.com
Friday, May 14, 2010
Colonoscopy waiting list times placing lives needlessly at risk
According to the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) a colonoscopy has been proven to be the most effective method to diagnose the disease. The ICS insist this procedure needs to be carried out between four and six weeks after referral. Indeed, in a letter back in December 2008, Health Minister Mary Harney herself told the HSE she wanted all people awaiting colonoscopies to be seen within one month.
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The information collated by the NPTF reveals that the figures for the waiting list at Sligo General Hospital has increased to 99 compared to 74 in March and 44 back in December. Galway University Hospital has also seen an increase of 70 percent with 106 patients now waiting for a colonoscopy, up from 62 patients in March, while the figures for Letterkenny General Hospital have jumped to 56, increasing from 43 in March and from 25 in December. The Beaumont Hospital in Dublin has gone from 66 to 131, a massive 98 percent increase. This is up from just 9 people on their waiting list back in December of last year.
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She also expressed concern over the impact these ever increasing waiting lists would have on the screening programme which is due to commence in 2012. According to Ms O'Meara “unless the problem of waiting lists is tackled in advance of screening being delivered, we are not sure that we can have full confidence in the ability of our hospital system to deliver screening while not impacting symptomatic services at the same time.”
This is all par for the course for an administration that has always shown contempt for the lives and well being of the people they claim to represent and govern on behalf of.
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Here in the north-west alone, we have seen the removal of 72 beds from Sligo General Hospital and the closure of wards. The Hospital is seriously understaffed with most wards operating with two to three nurses less than they require, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO).
Cancer services were also removed last year to Galway University hospital which is unable to cope with the increased workload, as campaigners against the move accurately predicted. There was also a delay of ten years in bringing the breast screening service BreastCheck to the north-west. Now following its eventual arrival last year, it is short staffed, resulting in even further delays in women receiving their appointments for what is, like a colonoscopy, a potentially life saving procedure.
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Mary Harney and her cabinet colleagues regularly talked about the need for prioritising. In fairness, she has kept her word. Her priority and that of her government colleagues is to protect the wealthy political and business elite and continue their greed before need and privatisation agenda at the expense of the working people and those most in need in this state.
Given the choice between creating and funding a first class health service freely and easily accessible to all, or bailing out the banks, they have chosen to bail out the banks. If people die as a result of their decisions, which they undoubtably have and will continue to, they are viewed as merely “collateral damage” in their ideological quest for profit and the attainment of ever increasing wealth.
Casey said: "éirígí are extremely concerned at the continuing high numbers waiting more than three months to receive potentially life saving colonoscopy testing. The fact that an increasing number of patients referred to Sligo General and other hospitals around the state have to endure such a lengthy delay for their colonoscopy is totally unacceptable."
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Casey concluded: "There is no excuse for people having to wait months for a procedure that could save their lives and which should happen within weeks of referral. It is a matter of deliberate political decisions being taken by this administration who have repeatedly shown that they care little whether working class people suffer unnecessarily or even die unnecessarily."
Saturday, May 8, 2010
éirígí accuse Labour of 'cowardice' over Croke park pay deal
Casey said: “The Labour party have refused to take any stance on the shameful public sector pay and reform deal agreed between the government and ICTU leadership, despite the negative impact this deal will have on workers. Indeed, one of their TD's Kathleeen Lynch went as far as to tell Newstalk radio (May 7) that it was 'none of their (Labour's) business'.”
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He added: “James Connolly and Jim Larkin would be spinning in their graves at the cowardice and lack of action in defence of workers by those who claim to inherit their political legacy. By staying silent they have exposed once again their contempt for the right of working people to resist the savage cutbacks imposed on them by the current leinster House administration.”
“While it is despicable, it is not surprising. Labour have consistently betrayed workers interests, most recently, when Labour leader Eamonn Gilmore publicly sided with the wealthy political and business elite in opposing the planned national strike by workers last March.”
He concluded: “If the rights and living standards of all Irish workers and their families are to be protected then the Croke park deal needs to rejected. I am now challenging the Labour party representatives here in the north-west to publicly declare their position on this deal. Do they believe like their party colleagues that the deal and the negative impact it will have on workers, including their ability to take industrial action, is 'none of Labours business'? They must stop hiding and clarify their position publicly.”
Friday, April 2, 2010
This is Criticial Because This is Class War
They never tired of telling us that incentives, in the form of profits, were essential to convincing ‘bold entrepreneurs’ to take investment ‘risks’. They never tired of telling us that this was the only way to successfully generate rising levels of economic growth and wealth that would, ultimately, it was argued, trickle down and benefit all of society. Nor did they ever tire of telling us that, if these investors happened to make bad investment decisions, then they alone would face the consequences; it was only fair that, in the same way as they were handsomely rewarded for the successful risks they were taking, so too should they suffer the losses when their investments failed. That is some of the logic of capitalism. So the theory went anyway.
On Tuesday [March 30], the Twenty Six County minister of finance Brian Lenihan exploded that particular set of myths with the announcement in Leinster House, that, far from the people being sovereign, they would, in effect, be paying the debts of private banks for decades to come. By his actions, Brian Lenihan has confirmed the contempt in which the political establishment holds the very people who elect them.
The detail of the further bail-out of the banking system is truly staggering in its scale: a total of €21 billion [£18.7 billion] to rescue a failed and corrupt system.
Of this total, €8.3 billion [£7.4 billion] will be pumped into Anglo-Irish Bank, for so long the play-thing of the Twenty-Six County state’s biggest property developers. It doesn’t end there either, as Lenihan announced that a further €10 billion [£8.9 billion] will be required for AIB alone. Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, AIB had already received €4 billion [£3.6 billion] of taxpayers’ money. To put this €21 billion in context, the combined health budget and education budget in the year that the bank guarantee scheme was agreed was €23 billion [£20.4 billion].
The consequences of this decision will be felt for a long, long time; the mass of people face unemployment, reduced public services and chronic levels of debt for generations to come.
The right of the people to quality healthcare, housing and education is being made subordinate to the interest of banks, speculators and developers. Workers pension rights are being sold off so that the fat-cats that bankrolled Fianna Fáil for decades can be saved.
On Tuesday, many of these property developers, almost all of whom regularly attended the Fianna Fáil fundraising tent at the Galway races during the so called boom years, had their loans transferred into NAMA. Among them were Liam Carroll, Bernard McNamara, Seán Mulryan and Johnny Ronan, the playboys of the Celtic Tiger, lauded by the corporate media as the men who were taking the big risks to build a thriving economy. These parasites, facilitated by their political wing in Fianna Fáíl, simply inflated the property bubble, forcing thousands of households to take out 100 per cent mortgages on homes that were incredibly over-valued. These householders are now expected to pick up the tab for this gambling greed.
The consequences of the bank guarantee scheme of September 2008; a scheme that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party and Sinn Féin all supported, is now painfully evident. Secret meetings between senior bankers and Dublin government ministers thrashed out a deal that was foisted upon an unsuspecting public. The loans and deposits of all banks were guaranteed on that September night in 2008 with little detail provided as to the exact state of the banks’ loan books. Any semblance of democracy has been truly torn to shreds and all that is offered is the tired Thatcherite mantra, ‘There is no alternative’.
No alternative, it seems, to bailing out the rich and powerful in Irish society with billions of euro of taxpayers’ money, while workers who actually created the wealth are consigned to the dole queues. With high rates of unemployment, bosses are using the recession to try and force down the pay and working conditions of those still in work. The deal agreed between ICTU negotiators and the Dublin government this week represents yet another shameful sell-out of public sector workers. It is utterly astonishing that union bosses are agreeing to a four year pay freeze and cuts in overtime for public sector workers while tens of billions is being spent bailing out the banks. The privatisation of sections of the public sector will follow unless workers demand that enough is enough.
This system has never been so clearly exposed as the fetter on human development it is as it was after Lenihan’s announcement. War has been declared on workers who are being treated once again as mere cogs in a profit-producing machine. That these egregious amounts of bailout funds can be made available now to rescue the capitalist banking system gives the lie to the notion that there is not enough money in society to take care of the totality of the social needs of people.
It is a lie that this type of society serves the needs of anyone but a small minority. We, the working people, need to take as our starting point in our understanding of this the fact that it is the working class alone who are the creators of wealth and that it is only through exploitation that wealth passes out of their control into that of the capitalist. Most importantly, we need to understand that this bank bailout presents stark and condemning proof, if ever more proof were needed, of the fact that, in this type of society, there is an irresolvable conflict between the interests of the capitalist class and those of the working class.
The task for socialists and republicans now is to find ways of highlighting this reality to the working and unemployed people that are the victims of capitalism. For it is only through effectively agitating and organising among our people that we will have a fighting chance of ever building the forces required for this economic system to be pulled off its hinges and a new, socialist one, built in its stead.
This is a critical task because this is class war.