éirígí announce Leinster House Finance Bill Protest for Saturday

The socialist republican party éirígí are to hold a demonstration outside Leinster House in Kildare Street this Saturday January 29th.  The protest which will commence at 5.30pm has been organised in opposition to the Finance bill which is currently being fast-tracked through Leinster House.

Announcing the demonstration Cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson said that people need to take to  the streets to resist the savage cutbacks being imposed from Leinster House on behalf of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB).

Leeson said:  “The Finance Bill which is currently being fast-tracked through Leinster House is set to be the final shameful piece of legislation enacted by this Fianna Fáil led administration.  It will give a legal basis to last November's blood budget.  This will enable the continuance of the policy of making working class  families and communities pay for the greed and corruption of bankers, developers and property speculators.”

“The true cost of this Finance Bill and the grubby deal arranged  with the IMF will not be measured in euros and cents.  Rather, it will be measured in levels of homelessness, in the severe decline of educational standards and in the massive increase in ill-health and ultimately unnecessary deaths of working class people that will inevitably result from it.”

Leeson concluded by urging people to take to the streets:

“We have an obligation, not just to this generation but to future generations to resist and fight back.  We need to drive the IMF from our shores, to burn the bondholders, to reverse the cutbacks and to establish the sovereignty of the people.  éirígí are urging people to take to the streets on Saturday to send a clear message to the IMF that their dictatorship will be resisted regardless of what puppets are implementing their dictats in Leinster House.”

Health Crisis No Accident - éirígí

The following letter to the editor from éirígí Sligeach activist Gerry Casey was recently published in the Western People Newspaper.  It can be viewed online here

Mayo General Hospital

A Chara

Your editorial (August 3) rightly expresses concern over HSE plans to slash services at Mayo General Hospital and the health service in general.

Our health service is in crisis, a deliberately manufactured crisis. What has happened in recent years has been the systematic stripping down of services from hospitals around the country.

This is no accident. It is ideology driven and part of a deliberate strategy of running down the public health system, increasingly privatising all aspects of health care, including our hospitals.

The current economic crisis, brought about by a combination of greed and corruption, is being used as a smokescreen for implementing these cuts and privatising the public healthcare system.

Despite Government claims, there is no excuse for cutting funding and services for hospitals. The money to properly fund our health service is there, only they believe spending tens of billions on bank bailouts and possibly €10 million to welcome the English monarch are more important than spending on people’s health.

 

Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has attempted to justify his savage cutbacks saying there was “no pot of gold that can be raided from the wealthy that can solve our difficulties”. This is untrue. The business elite, who amassed billions of euros on the backs of workers throughout the Celtic Tiger, remain wealthy individuals. Despite the recession, the richest people in this country have got even richer.

Hundreds of billions of euro worth of oil and gas lie off the Irish coast, the rights to these resources given away by previous Fianna Fáil administrations. Those natural resources could be nationalised at the stroke of a pen.

Yet the Government has taken deliberate decisions not to nationalise these natural resources and not to tax the rich. Instead, they are content to reduce workers’ incomes and slash essential health and education services, including funding for our hospitals.

Is mise

Gerry Casey,