Pre-Budget submission by The Workers Party Introduction The Budget is not a neutral or impartial economic process. It is a most political process derived from the political position and political ideology of those in power. The present Irish government has, without a whimper, accepted the overarching political and economic framework forced on this country in November 2010 by the EU/ECB/IMF troika. In its pre-budget briefings thus far the government is making very clear choices as to where the cutbacks will apply and on whom the burden of economic hardship will fall. It is the view of the Workers Party that the economic analysis and philosophy of the government, and of the major capitalist powers, is fatally flawed and therefore the solutions they propose cannot succeed. The kernel of the situation is that the present crisis is not a banking crisis, or a credit crisis, or a financial crisis. It is a fundamental crisis of capitalism. The capitalist system, based on greed and exploitation, is undergoing a cataclysmic crisis and no matter how much hardship and misery is heaped at the doorsteps of the working class that crisis will continue. Capitalism, and in particular modern advanced transnational finance capital, has always regarded the state as its own plaything, there to smooth the path to profit and prevent any protest by the oppressed. In the relentless pursuit of profit the role of the state in providing necessary infrastructure and social services has been eroded as the false mantra of “the private sector can do it better� was deliberately disseminated by a willing and subservient media and academia. The most obvious feature of the present crisis is that it is the private sector which has failed. Internationally banks have seen the most spectacular collapses as their foundations of massive private debt and fly-by-night investment products proved unsustainable. Because banks and banking have gained such a dominant position within the capitalist structure with, for example, 40% of corporate profit in the USA deriving from the banking sector, this sector has gained a stranglehold on the decision making processes within all the major capitalist governing structures. Time and again, from the Republic of Ireland to Greece and to the USA, millions of working people, retired workers, and those dependent on social payments have suffered grievously so that banks may be rescued, refloated, or recapitalised. The role of the state in capitalist society, as epitomised very well in this country, has changed significantly. The state now has a role in banking. Its role is to rescue native banks and bankers from their own mistakes, rescue bondholders from their mistakes; and guarantee the gambles of the huge multinational banking corporations in the core EU economies against their mistakes in relation to this country. Banks which assiduously guarded their privatised profits have now persuaded the state to socialise their losses. The state has become a rehab centre for international banking. However, it is crucial to note that despite the dependent state of bankers vis a vis government the bankers are still dictating policy. The obscenity of inflated salaries and undeserved bonuses continues. Despite new high profile personnel in some public positions the culture of light-touch regulation continues. The financial labyrinth of the IFSC is largely, and deliberately, designed as a closed book to the Irish people. It is also largely a closed book to the Irish tax authorities.
There are a number of self-serving myths which are being circulated ad nauseum by capitalist apologists and media. These myths are designed to provide the veneer of respectability by which the ECB/IMF Chicago School of Economics programme is implemented on the public. The first self-serving myth is that “we are all in this together”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The gap between rich and poor, nationally and internationally, is rising. The income differential between senior management and ground-floor staff is steadily increasing. The percentage of company gross profits taken as private profit as against the percentage used in wages or reinvested has increased over the last generation and has accelerated since the onset of the latest capitalist recession. Alongside the poverty and unemployment there is enormous wealth, some discretely hidden and some ostentatiously displayed. This wealth is not taxed and every attempt to tax wealth in this country has been viciously opposed. Furthermore every attempt to tax income derived from the ownership or control of wealth has been equally opposed. If “we are all in this together” then clearly we should all pay tax together. Rental income, company profits, share income, should all be taxed and assessed for USC on the same basis as the weekly wage of a nurse, a bin-man or a chef. The second myth is that our economic ills are caused by a “bloated public sector” and that the indiscriminate slashing of this sector is the solution to our problems. This myth is self-serving for three reasons. In the first instance it crudely attempts to use one of the oldest tricks of the oppressor and the imperialist – the tactic of divide and conquer. This myth sets out to divide worker against worker; to set the public sector worker up as the enemy of the private sector worker; and ultimately to divert the attention of all workers from their common enemy, namely capitalism. Secondly the propagation of this myth allows the government to savagely attack public expenditure. The reality, as clearly pointed out by the OECD three years ago and the IPA in September of this year, is that our public services are neither overstaffed nor overpaid. Indeed the contrary is the situation as can be verified empirically by our lengthening hospital waiting lists and increasing class sizes, and the fact that some public sector workers actually qualify for Family Income Supplement. The excessive salaries of the top 2-300 most senior civil service and public sector management cannot be used as a stick to attack the other 300,000 low and medium paid staff. Lastly this myth is one of the fig leafs used to justify the mass privatisation of publicly owned assets. Time and again, nationally and internationally we have seen concerted campaigns to denigrate the public sector because the private sector demands control of every process from which a profit can be extracted. Public transport; care of the elderly; water supply are all being primed for full or partial handover to private profit companies despite the disastrous record of these transfers internationally and specifically in the UK. The third myth is TINA - “there is no alternative”. Patently this is nonsense. There are many choices – there is always an alternative. More specifically when the supposed remedy being implemented has not worked for the last three years; has never worked internationally; and lacks any sound intellectual base then clearly there has to be an alternative. The present government strategy, as dictated by the EU/ECB/IMF troika and as also dictated by the decisions of the G20, is to protect the rich; defend the banks; penalise workers for the failure of capitalism; and use international military superiority to maintain control of their neo-colonial empires. The banks and financial industry have become so powerful that the laws of capitalism have been distorted to allow them maintain their privileged position. The Irish government is 2
presently, and will continue for the foreseeable future to pump billions of Euro into the dead corpse of Anglo Irish Bank. Even under the rules of capitalism this is perverse. Under the normal rules when this bank failed its ownership should have transferred to the bondholders and they should not have had any recourse to the state for help. For ideological reasons the then government made the call to guarantee this rogue bank and for similar ideological reasons the present government are following the same path. This, more clearly than any other action, reflects the role of the state in capitalist society as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie whose role is to protect the vested interests of that elite. The allocation of the burden of taxation is a key question and there are very clear alternatives in the resolution of this problem. The government, in all its taxation measures, is penalising the lower and middle income wage earners in society. While the government flies kites about cutting back on children’s allowance, or introducing a means test so as to make the “allocation of scarce resources more equitable” it totally refuses to introduce a third rate of income tax for income in excess of €2,000 per week. Clearly the class interests of its friends must be protected and promoted. Again there are clear alternatives for the options of cuts in government spending. The very clear indications in the pre-budget statements by the government is that it is going to attack front-line services across all sectors which will have immediate and devastating effects on the lives of thousands of the most vulnerable in our society. The Workers Party believes that frontline services must be maintained and defended and that any cuts should be in the tax subsidies to the private health industry; transnational corporations; high income individuals; and private insurance. The adoption of the French or US rules in relation to tax fugitives would also be a positive step.
Submission Framework The Workers Party believes that budget 2012 and subsequent budgets must be framed with three primary objectives: to achieve full employment for our people; and to achieve equity in our taxation system; and to ensure first class provision of services in education, health, and care of the elderly and vulnerable in society. We unashamedly state that the economic and budgetary policies of this state must prioritise the interests of the majority of our population, the working class. In a true democracy adherence to the above principles would be the sine qua non of economic policy. It is sadly apparent that in the past our democracy was severely eroded by political corruption at the highest level and by the influence of powerful elites. These distortions of our democracy, which undoubtedly continue to exist, have now been joined by a much more sinister factor with the power to undermine democracy throughout Europe. In the last month the EU/ECB/IMF troika, acting as the mouthpiece for international bankers and bondholders, has effected two coups d’état within the EU. The democratically elected prime ministers of Greece and Italy have unceremoniously been dumped from office by this international cabal and replaced by local Quislings, both incidentally members of the secretive Bilderberg group. We must seriously ask who is being prepared off-camera in case our government ministers are not seen as sufficiently eager to serve their international masters.
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A - Job Creation: Since 2006 Ireland’s average (seasonally adjusted) unemployment rate has increased from 4.4% in 2006 to 13.6% in 2010 and steadily rising In our submission to the 2011 budget we stated: “It is the unequivocal view of the Workers Party that shrinking the Irish economy will not solve our present problems of debt to GDP ratio, and indeed there is widespread evidence to the contrary. It is must surely be selfevident, even to this government, that, as a first step, to increase the workforce / reduce the dole queue by 100,000 would have many and massive beneficial effects on our economic situation”. We have now suffered a further year of budget cutbacks and the economy has neither recovered, nor indeed shown signs that stabilisation is imminent. Our unemployment figure moves inexorably towards 500,000 and emigration continues unabated. The Irish experience is mirrored in the Greek experience where Troika-imposed cutbacks and other right-wing economic measures have caused widespread poverty and the virtual collapse of the Greek domestic economy. The need for planned, sustainable job creation is greater than ever. The Workers Party believes the key to job creation lies in the development and strengthening of out publicly owned companies, the commercial semi-state sector. On a national basis some of the largest indigenous companies are publicly owned. The performance of these companies has, over the last two decades, been remarkably consistent. They employ about 40,000 directly and many more indirectly. They have a turnover of around €10 billion and generate profits in the region of €500 million annually. They also pay, on a varying basis, a dividend to the state. The Workers Party therefore opposes any planned sell-off of commercial state assets and believes it is economic suicide to propose the sell-off of a major stake in the ESB. The proposed capital-gain to the state of a maximum €2 billion from such a sale is derisory in terms of the investment which has been made by the public in that company and commercial nonsense considering that ESB paid in excess of €800 million to the state in dividends in the period 2000 – 2008. The state has a unique launch pad for economic growth in the cluster of energy companies in public ownership. Greater unity and coordination between these companies – ESB, Bord Gáis and Bord na Móna – would both reduce energy prices to industry and households but also allow for the expansion into the new energy technologies where there is massive growth potential for both the domestic market and the export market. This is especially important as the price of carbon fuels continues to rise and the EU has set specific targets for diversification away from carbon based fuels. The National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF), which has funds in excess of €20 billion, provided the government with a mechanism to invest in an entire range of projects, on a commercial basis, without in any way impinging on our debt to GDP ratio. However this fund has been almost completely ravaged under the bank recapitalisation deal imposed on Ireland by the EU/IMF. The maximum available funds in the NPRF now stand at €5 billion. Over a four year period this still provides an annual fund of €1 billion for secured investment in an entire range of industry and we propose that it should be deployed in this manner.
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It is now accepted by all international authorities that the era of cheap carbon fuels, i.e. oil and gas, has come to an end. While there may be a reduction from the recent price spikes, the price will stabilise at a much higher level that it had been at for the last two decades. While this reality, as we noted earlier, provides a motive for energy diversification, it also shows the huge economic potential which ownership and control of oil and gas reserves can confer on a state. It is therefore more urgent than ever that Ireland takes charge of our own oil and gas reserves and builds for the future. The disgraceful and corrupt deals that handed control of huge gas reserves off the North Mayo coast to a Shell led consortium must be repudiated and proper commercial arrangements put in place. Unfortunately we cannot have much confidence that this government will adopt a different stance that that of the Fianna Fáil predecessors who were so ignominiously routed by the Irish electorate earlier this year. In the next few months the government issued exploration licences for major sections of our Atlantic coastal waters – and did so on the exact same terms and conditions as their FF counterparts. Sadly, not only is the government in thrall to the IMF/EU/ECB troika but it is now obviously in thrall also to the transnational oil and gas corporations. Government Capital Investment Programme The role of government capital investment in building necessary infrastructure and creating worthwhile well paid jobs in construction can act as a major stimulus to economic recovery during recession. Sadly the government’s capital spending forecast axes some long-planned and major capital projects. Many of these capital projects are in the transport infrastructure. This is a false economy on two fronts. It is now cheaper than at any time in this century to construct vital infrastructure in this country. As well as transport infrastructure we need more and upgraded schools, primary care centres and state owned centres for care for the elderly. If we do not build now we will be playing catch-up for the next two decades. As well as destroying potential jobs the refusal to build public transport infrastructure, especially public transport infrastructure to the vast working class suburbs of our cities, prevents people getting to work and taking up job or training opportunities that they would otherwise take up. This negative societal and economic effect of lack of public transport was highlighted in the 1980s and ‘90s when the then government was developing an anti-poverty strategy. As recently as last week this finding was reinforced by a survey carried out by one of the leading commercial property auctioneers which stated that access to public transport was the most important factor for businesses when renting / buying office space. If people physically cannot get to work or to a training centre then, literally, they are stuck in a poverty trap.
B - We need a fair and equitable tax system The central inequality in the tax system in Ireland is that income is taxed while wealth is not. The secondary inequality is that within the wage earning sector the burden falls unfairly on the lower and middle income earner while the top earners have an entire slew of mechanisms to minimise their tax bill. The newest and rapidly developing tax inequality is that consumption taxes and flat-rate taxes (eg the upcoming €100 household charge) impinge most severely on the lowest paid. As a first step the Workers Party demands the introduction of a third band for income tax. We have over several years proposed a tax band of 50% to apply to all income over €100,000 per annum and we have further proposed that all income, earned or unearned, be treated in the same way for the purposes of the tax system.
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The Workers Party reiterates our long standing opposition to service charges. They are in the first instance an unjust form of double taxation, and secondly have always acted as the precursor of privation of these services to the private profit sector. Frankly, the lessons from right across the world, and specifically the lessons from our nearest neighbour should be a salutary warning of the dangers of such a path. We therefore believe that the huge state investment in the installation of domestic meters is completely misguided and is merely a deferred subsidy to the private sector. Such money as there is available should be used to improve infrastructure, reduce leakages, and provide assistance to households in simple technologies as rain-water harvesting to reduce demand on municipal services. The Workers Party opposes the introduction of the Household charge as the re-introduction of domestic rates and is a cover for the refusal of the government to introduce a Wealth Tax which has the potential, even at the level of 0.25% to raise substantial exchequer funds with minimal disruption to the domestic economy. The Workers Party is not in favour of a property tax which becomes a tax on the family home. The domestic Household Charge places the burden on exactly the same sector which is already overburdened by recent tax changes, levies, and reduction in benefits available through PRSI. It will force people into poverty and in reducing discretionary spending by low and middle income families will have a direct and negative impact on the domestic economy. The loss to the exchequer of tax reliefs (other than domestic mortgage relief) was calculated two years ago by the commission on taxation as over ₏4 billion annually. Most of these reliefs could and should be abolished without damage to the domestic economy. The figures used here are updated from 2009 by Tasc, CSO, ESRI, and others. The Workers Party specifically proposes the introduction of a Wealth Tax in this budget. Despite the financial demise of some high profile builders and property speculators this country is still one of the wealthiest countries in the OECD. The huge profits made by the land owners and land hoarders from 1997-2007, which largely avoided any tax at the time of accrual, must now be traced and made subject to a wealth tax. The number of Irish millionaires, or high net worth individuals (HNWIs) has increased over the last 12 months. Certain spending indicators, e.g. purchase of top of the range motor vehicles, or preChristmas shopping flights to New York demonstrate the level of wealth that continues to exist here. A wealth tax, unlike consumption taxes, is actually a stimulus to economic growth. The tax itself takes money from a dormant position and injects it directly into the real economy, thus stimulating demand. Furthermore, the very existence of the tax pushes people/companies sitting on non-productive wealth to invest it into productive activity. In the 2012 budget the changes below could be made to the tax regime without hurting low or middle income earners; without damaging the domestic economy; actually stimulating growth by moving resources from dormant to productive purposes; and raising more revenue than the government’s own target. The most recent figures from the CSO and from the voluntary bodies dealing with poverty and homelessness in Ireland demonstrate the real urgency of this growth-led approach to our taxation system. All the figures and all the indicators clearly show that poverty and the risk of poverty is on the increase. Up to 40% of children either live in poverty or with the threat of poverty.
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Proposed changes to the tax system: Source
€ millions
Income Tax: Third tax rate of 50% for income above €100,000 p/a.
440
Property Tax 0.6% rate with a minimum threshold of €1 million.
600
PRSI Make all income reckonable for PRSI contributions
120
Tax reliefs Abolish property based ‘Legacy Reliefs’ on non-residential property Half the level at which interest repayments can be claimed against tax for residential rental properties
450 350
USC Make all capital gains, gifts and inheritances reckonable for USC
200
CGT Cut exemption for disposal of site to child from 100% to 50%
20
CAT Limit business and agricultural reliefs for CAT
94
Reduce tax threshold for Category A to €250,000 and reduce other threshold to €25,000 75 Pensions Reduce income tax relief on pension contributions to the standard income tax rate Reduce tax exemption for lump-sum pension payments plus changes to rules governing ARFs
500 90
Health Ending legacy tax reliefs to builders and operators of private hospitals/nursing homes, Plus ending the tax subsidy to private health insurance companies Total
1,000
3,899
This makes a tax gain of €3.899 billion – which is equal to what the Government proposes in cutbacks to services and tax increases. It is the clear view of the Workers Party that all of the proposals we have made are fair and equitable; will reduce the unfair burden on the working class; will incentivise investment, and thus end the downward economic spiral. Getting people back to work in sustainable employment, and increasing the incomes of the poorest in society is the only method by which we can resuscitate the domestic economy.
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C - To ensure first class provision of services in education, health, and care of the elderly and vulnerable in society. The reality in Ireland is that great poverty and deprivation has always coexisted with great wealth. Even during the height of the Celtic Tiger illusion deep poverty continued to exist in this country. Social Justice Ireland, for example, calculates that: “14.1% of Ireland‘s population is at risk of poverty with incomes below €11,585 for a single person or €26,877 for a household of four. 37% of all the households at risk of poverty today are headed by a person with a job. A further 44% are headed by a person outside the labour force (i.e. older people and people who are ill, have a serious disability or are in caring roles) and are totally dependent on social welfare”. SJI also states: “Without any social welfare payments 88% of all those aged 65+yrs would be living in poverty. Benefit entitlements reduce the poverty level among this group to 9.6 per cent. Similarly, social welfare payments (including child benefit) reduce poverty among those under 18 years from 47.3 per cent to 18.6 per cent”. However cuts in allowances, especially fuel allowances, and the projected rise in fuel prices this year, will have a serious impact on many poorer households and especially on older people. Fuel poverty will be an increasingly severe problem during this winter. Therefore a short-term saving on the social welfare budget will increase the demands on the public health service and will also, inevitably, lead to otherwise unnecessary deaths amongst older people. Cuts to home help and carers’ allowance introduced in the last budget must be reversed to provide security to families and dignity to individuals. There are currently 98,318 households in Ireland on a waiting list for housing. While Ireland produced far more houses than it needed over the past decade, it failed to address the waiting list issue. As a result the numbers on waiting lists more than tripled in a decade and a half. At present over 78% of those in need of housing have annual incomes of less than €15,000 demonstrating the link between unemployment and housing need. While the government has placed a total embargo on local authorities building housing units and while thousands of local authority houses are lying empty due to a shortage of funds for refurbishment the state is paying over €700,000,000 to private landlords in rent allowances. This is completely dead money and it has been well documented that many of the landlords are not even registered with the PRTB and that the quality of the accommodation provided is very much below acceptable standards. The Workers Party reiterates our proposal that the money presently being used to subsidise private landlords should be used directly by local authorities in the provision of publicly owned housing thus also creating an asset rather that an on-going liability to the state.
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Health proposals: We have made the point earlier that we oppose the subsidies to private health though either tax breaks for hospitals, subsidies to private health insurance etc. The savings of over €1 bn in this area would fund our proposals here – making the proposal cost-neutral to the state. Urgent action is required in five key areas if the basic model of care that is to underpin the health services is not to be undermined. These areas are: 1. Older People‘s Services 2. Primary Care Teams 3. Children and Family Services 4. Mental Health Services 5 Access to consultants and elective hospital care Model of Care: The Workers Party proposes a publicly-funded national health service, available to all, and free at the point of delivery. We oppose all public subsidies, direct or indirect, to the privateprofit health industry. Older People It is now recognised that the best care for elderly people, in most cases, is care in their own home for the maximum length of time. The Workers Party fully supports this position and believes that the necessary infrastructure to facilitate this policy must be put in place. This infrastructure includes: proper funding for carers and home-helps; free access to all necessary medicines and appliances like crutches, wheelchairs, chairlifts, etc; care homes and convalescent homes owned, funded, and operated by the HSE. Primary Care Teams (PCT) At the moment the HSE is developing Primary Care Teams and Social Care Networks as the basic building blocks of local public health care provision. The Workers Party supports the development of primary care centres and the development of all the services needed to make these centres effective. Properly staffed and open on a 24 hour basis will improve health provision locally and relieve pressure on our hospital services. However we note that the schedule of provision of these centres – which was never sufficiently broad in the first place – is now years behind schedule. If there are any further delays the entire programme will collapse in disrepute. We propose that over a three year phased basis the programme of Primary Care Centres is completed, and sufficient staff recruited so that they can fulfill their potential. Children and Family Services In tandem with the development of Primary Care Team services there is a need to focus on health and social care provision for children and families. The obligation on the State to develop and provide services and facilities to support vulnerable and at risk children has been well highlighted recently. The absence of services for vulnerable children at-risk children, or children with disabilities places a huge and unfair burden on their families. This burden becomes unmanageable if the families themselves are not equipped to cope with these pressures. It also places a massive and very difficult burden on schools and the school system.
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All of the cuts in what Orwell-speak now calls “non core allowances” impacts seriously on these families. The cuts in SNA provision, psychological services, and special-classes in mainstream schools, all compound the pressure on these children /young people and their families. The lack of social commitment now, and the allocation of quite small resources, will negatively impact on these young people for their entire lives in the medical, educational, employment, and social spheres and will cost the state many multiples of any “savings” made now. Mental Health - Implementation of Vision for Change Traditionally Ireland’s treatment of those with mental illness has been appalling. Our treatment of those falsely and often maliciously diagnosed with mental illness was even worse. Our mental hospitals were structurally pre-Dickensian and the standard of care also rooted in that era. Thankfully we have largely moved on from that era although some troubling remnants remain. A Vision for Change is the national strategy for mental health published in 2006, which sets out how services should be structured and delivered in Ireland. This strategy will see a continued move away from the old model of institutional care to a wide range of modern community based mental health services. This approach aims to support people to live as independently as possible and avoid admission to hospital if possible. This approach needs resources – both physical and personnel. It needs long term planning and commitment. It is beyond belief that the state, through NAMA, will blithely write off €40 billion worth of debt by speculators and yet penalise, through withdrawal of vital services, this most vulnerable group in society. Education: The cutbacks in education – concentrated as they are in the provision of SNAs, ELAs, special classes, Resource-Hours, Traveller education etc – are deliberately aimed at the weakest and most vulnerable in society. The savage attack on the book grant; difficulties in getting school uniform allowance etc all impact on the same sector of society. Contrast this situation with the continued subsidy of €100 million annually to private fee paying schools and the reality really hits home. One of the factors which is vitally needed as part of an economic workforce is a skilled labour force. The Workers Party supports this fully – however we do not support cutbacks and curriculum change introduced at the behest of multinational companies who merely want our education system to do their training for free. As one recent conference speaker stated “we do not want the dominance of the church in education to be replaced by the dominance of Intel. Education must be provided for the benefit of the person receiving the education to achieve their potential and thereby to contribute fully to society. Over the last few years we have seen budget decisions worsening of the teacher-pupil ration; drastically cutting numbers of SNAs; abolishing the summer-works scheme amongst other attacks. Last week various publications predicted a 2,000 cut in teacher numbers. If this is implemented it will have a devastating affect on the quality of education especially as primary 10
school-going numbers will rise in the next few years by an estimated 50,000. Ireland’s classes in primary schools are already 20% higher than the EU average with 24 pupils per class compared to 20 in other countries. We concur with a recent INTO statement which stated: “There is widespread agreement among education researchers that younger children do not do as well in over-crowded classes. When class numbers are reasonable modern teaching methods are possible. If we want to improve education outcomes for children the last thing that should be done is increase class sizes.” “A decade ago government promised to reduce class sizes for the under nines to less than twenty in line with international best practice. This year, the education department’s own figures show that only 15 percent of primary pupils are in classes of less than twenty pupils”. Equal access to third level education, and equal access to all sectors of third level education is a basic right of all citizens. Therefore the proposals to re-introduce tuition fees and/or increase registration fees taken in conjunction with last year’s attacks on the third level grants scheme is another attack on the poor and marginalized and another reinforcement of privilege in society. SUMMARY The budget sets out the economic policy and economic programme of the government. As stated earlier in this submission: “We unashamedly state that the economic and budgetary policies of this state must prioritise the interests of the majority of our population, the working class”. Democracy demands nothing less. It is clear that our democracy, such as it ever was, has been grievously undermined by the dominant position held by the banking industry not only over our own government, but also over our political overlords in the troika. It is appropriate therefore to recall the words of James Connolly from his 1897 publication “Socialism and Nationalism”: "If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed." By simply updating that quotation, and replacing England with EU/IMF, we have a very accurate summation of our present political situation. Government policy is placing the burden for the capitalist crisis on the backs of workers and those dependent on social support payments and services. This undoubtedly will have a major negative affect on people’s lives. This is not an accident; it is the nature of capitalism to be uncaring. As Marx stated: “Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society." [Marx, Capital. Volume 1, Chapter 10 (1867)]. Our submission shows that there is a viable, people-centred, growth-oriented alternative to the policies of the Irish government, whether it is the present or previous coalition.
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