October 2022

TheSocialist

It’s a cost of survival crisis: Take o n The pr ofiTee rs!

By Jonathan Diebold

Cost of living: We suffer, they profit

Good times for billionaires

as the cost of living crisis deepens, it may warm your hear t this winter to know that at least some people remain unaffected while so many of us suffer ireland’s billionaires not only are unaffected, but they ’ve increased their wealth by 58% since the pandemic, to over €50 billion this is almost five times what the government is spending in its much vaunted €11 billion cost of living package

Where is that trillion euros?

irish household wealth has soared to a massive €1 trillion according to the central bank So why don’t we feel rich? Well, it ’s because so much of that wealth is concentrated in so few hands for example, the central Statistics office has repor ted that the richest 10% of irish households have net wealth in excess of €788,000, while the net wealth of the poorest 10% is less than €600

It ’s cer tainly well for some…

ireland also has the highest per capita number of billionaires in the

eu, but also fully 5% of the population, or 250,000 people, are millionaires the top 1% (50,000 people) are not mere millionaires, but are those with over €30 million to their name

Price -gouging energy companies

We may be struggling to pay our energy bills, but for energy companies, profits have never been higher bord Gáis energy announced that its operating profits surged 74% in the first half of this year to €40 million the eSb, a state owned company, recorded

whopping profits of €700 million Globally, in the first six months of 2022, the five biggest oil companies made €100 billion in profits

Nifty Budget… for data centres!

ever y household in i reland will receive a €600 energy credit, while energy bills are expec ted to rise to €6,000 the poor data centres, meanwhile, which soak up 14% of the countr y ’s energy supply, will be able to avail of up to €10,000 in energy relief under the cost of living pack age that

igure is not per year, but per month!

Ever y little helps

While people are struggling to afford the heating, they ’re also struggling to afford eating too you might expect that supermarkets are increasing prices because they too are hur ting from inflation but actually, profits here too are eaching record highs Sales are up 12% thanks to the pandemic tesco, the largest chain in ireland and britain, are estimating that they ’ll double their profits to between £2 4 billion and £2 6 billion this year.

No more ‘trickle up economics’

it’s clear that there’s huge wealth in ireland and massive profits being made off the suffering generated by this crisis Wealth is being transferred directly upwards from the working class to the rich and to huge corporations. What’s needed is not this trickle up economics (nor trickle down for that matter), but the seizing of the wealth and resources in society from the capitalist parasites, bringing the key sections of the economy into public ownership and planning them to meet the needs of all, instead of adding more profits to the accounts to the few

students struggle to stay afloat in cost of living storm

by aoife coppinger

On 13 October, the Union of S tudents in Ireland (USI), has c alled for a walkout to protest the cost of living cr isis and its devastat ing impact on students. T he Socialist Par ty suppor ts the USI’s call and will be par ticipating in the walkouts that happen on campuses across Ireland. Young people in Ireland are currently facing a horrific accommodation crisis and inflation causing the cost of food, fuel and other necessities to r ise As winter sets in and energ y prices soar, a large number of students pay ing al ready extortionate rents simply won’t be able to afford to live anymore

Sleeping in cars

There are countless examples of stu dents sleeping in cars, couch surfing, or commuting for hours ever y day to be able to attend college This reality for students is adversely affecting people’s access to third level education, putting immense strain on their ability to learn and participate fully in college life

Under these circumstances, it is no surprise that more than 70% of young people aged 18 24 are considering em igrating because they think they would enjoy a better quality of life elsewhere, according to research by the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI)

Urgent action required

Recentl y, we have seen 5,000 people protest the cost of living crisis in Cork, and 15,000 attend the national protest in D ublin the following weekend, with many travelling from across the countr y to attend, inc luding many students These protests highlight the growing level of discontent and anger in society among workers and young people, and the beginnings of working class people standing up against what are in reality attac ks on their living standards Ur gent actions are needed now to resist these attacks and make third level ac cessible for ever yone who wants to avail of it;

l Build public on campus accommoda tion and slash rents to affordable levels

l No more extortionate travel costs free and expanded public transport l S tudents can’t afford to live raise the minimum wage to €17 an hour to meet the spiralling costs of inflation l Ireland currently has the highest uni versity fees in Europe abolish all fees and introduce free third le vel educ a tion accessible to all

For real gains to be made for stu dents and young people, we need to or ganise from below on c ampuses, in workplaces and communities, alongside other working c lass people organising against the cost of living cr isis The

Students

strike waves in Britain and the North are inspiring examples that prove that workers can and will fight back S tudents should suppor t and fight for all demands that will better the lives of working c lass people more broad ly, such as calls to nationalise the energ y companies under the democratic con trol of workers and communities, and for the mass building of public housing for all

A capitalist crisis

The pursuit of profit and the chaos of the market are what ’ s fuelling this cri sis

More than enough wealth exists globall y to meet the needs of all, but under c apitalism, this wealth will al ways be concentrated in the hands of a minuscule minorit y of the super rich Ireland ’ s billionaires’ wealth went up by €16 billion since the pandemic

W hile our wealth shr inks, their

wealth grows even further This is not a coincidence Capitalist crises like the cost of living crisis, the housing crisis, the c limate crisis, wars and so on will continue unless we completel y break with this inhumane system, and fight for a wor ld where workers, young peo ple and all the oppressed democrati cally run society to ensure the needs of all are met This is the socialist wor ld we need to fight for

socialist

Budget: Minimal measures will leave thousands cold & hungry this winter

by Mick barr y tD

The gOvernmenT spin ma chine went into o verdr ive this week and the cor porate media ran banner headlines hailing a “giveaway Budget ” and an “€11 Billion Bo nanza ”

W hile it is true that under pressure from below the government spent more money than it had originally intended, the Budget still falls well shor t of what ’ s needed to protect the living standards of ordinar y people

Minimal benefits

This c an be demonstrated in many ways we will give just two examples here

S ocial welfare pay ments were in creased by €12 For someone on a little over €250 a week this represents less than a 5% increase

Government spokespersons argued that “top up ” increases in fuel al lowance, energ y credits and double payments go a long way towards bridg ing the gap to an inflation rate of 9%

Howe ver, this ignores the fact that big ne w energ y pr ice hikes are yet to kic k in and that low income house holds spend a disproportionate share of incomes on the basics like food and fuel, where prices are rising fastest

Meanwhile, a worker on €25k, €30k or €35k received tax reductions which average less than €4 per week

Facilitating price hikes

The fact that the government, again and again, uses “market mechanisms” to drive policy means that wealth ends up being transferred from working c lass people to the rich

A good example of this is the €500 a year rental tax credit L eaving aside the fact that this is barely enough to cover a week’s rent in D ublin, the refusal to introduce a rent freez e means that

many land lords will now simpl y in crease the rent with the money then ending up in their bank accounts

Similar ly, the €600 in energ y credits will be totally swallowed up by the big energ y profiteers Pr ices should also have been c apped at least mid 2021 rates The costs of this could then be covered by nationalising the energ y in dustr y and its profits, and by taxing wealth at the top of society

Handouts for big business

The Budget also transfers wealth to the wealthy in more direct way s The €10,000 a month energ y grants to busi nesses are an example of this Socialists do support grants such as this to small and some medium sized businesses on certain conditions, such as pay ing a living wage, recognising unions etc But we are totally opposed to making such pay ments to hugel y profitable corporations, including prof iteers that have greatly worsened soci et y ’ s energ y cr isis such as the data centres

No country for young people

The government offered young people only sops in this Budget and nothing real to end the housing crisis now driv ing so many to emigrate If mass youth emigration is not official government policy now it might as well be given the impact of their policies

S imilar l y, one parent families were lef t out of the Budget, with the One Family organisation calling it the ‘most regressive Budget for lone parents since 2012’

Take on the profiteers

We also call for real, hard hitting taxes on wealth and profits to fund the de fences needed to protect living stan dards The USC could be abolished twice over if a millionaires’ tax of 2% were introduced a higher tax could fund even stronger defences

Collecting corporate taxes at the rate of 15% while eliminating loopholes would raise €30 billion more than the government collects But corporate tax rates lower than workers’ tax rates are a

sc andal, and should therefore be in creased to at least 25%

Profiteering, which today means the few making money by making miser y for the many, can be slightly curbed but it c an’t be ended while big business owns and controls the economy Profi teering is part of capitalism’s DNA; it is a system predicated on ruthless com petition to maximise profit at the ex pense of people and the planet

The Socialist Party will fight to evict this F ianna Fáil / F ine Gael / Green Party government, but we also need to build a new working c lass movement for lef t, socialist government that will break with their capitalist system

Along with the assets of the energ y c om p a n i e s , c o r p o r a t e l a n d l o rd s a n d b a n k s , a l l t h e k e y s e c t i on s o f t h e economy must be brought into demo c r a t i c p u b l i c ow n e r s h i p a n d p l a n n e d to provide for our needs, e g building p u b l i c h om e s , p ro v i d i n g f re e p u b l i c t r a n s p o r t a n d c h i l d c a re, i nve s t i n g t o ensure we transition to 100% rene w able energ y

Rising evictions lead to record homelessness

by councillor leah Whelan

A r e co r d 10,805 people are now living in emergenc y ac commodation, 3,220 of whom are children. What a shameful indic tment of this government and those that have been in power over the last decade a key fac tor fueling this crisis is the stark rise in post pandemic evic tions. i n the first six months of this year terminations from land lords rose by 58% a broader fac tor is the lack of investment into public housing, along with the reliance on the pri vate market to supply homes, while landlords and developers make huge profits from the crisis the lack of building and access to social housing impac ts children and single parents dispropor tion ately, with single parent led fami lies mak ing up 55% of the homeless numbers

by finghín Kelly

Market liberalisation

W

ith soar ing pr ices f or g as and electr icit y, many more house holds will str uggle to make ends meet and to pay their bills this winter

Anticipating these pr ice hikes and under pressure from below the govern ment and its regulator the Commis sion f or the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) was pushed into extending the ban on disconnections this winter

This ‘ mor ator ium’ howe ver wil l onl y appl y to people who pay f or gas and electricit y through bills For those on prepaid or ‘ pay as you go ’ meters f or electricit y or gas the fear of the lights going out or the heating tur ning off this winter will still be there

This is not a small cohort of people: 340,000 households have pay as you go electricit y meters around one in six households! There are also 117,000 households with prepaid gas meters

The grow th in these meters is also rooted in the massive increase in the cost of gas and electricit y due to liber alisation Prices were consciously hiked to provide profits for pr ivate compa nies enter ing the ‘market ’ More ex pensive bills in turn increased arrears which in turn saw more people moving to pay as you go to pay down arrears, or out of fear of getting big bills

Electricit y and heating are key util ities and basic needs Instead of having this as a commodit y, we need to pro vide them as a r ight This could be done if the interests of these privateers are challenged, and the energ y sector brought into public ownership

A system run in this way could take steps like guaranteeing all households an al lowance of energ y free at the point of use, and completel y outlaw disconnections

A basic necessity and right housing is a basic necessit y and a human right, and just like health, education and other vital public ser vices, it should not be com modified! i t reflec ts the parasitic nature of capitalism that housing as a human right is pushed to one side in favour of the private finan cial gains of developers, bankers, vulture funds and landlords i f there is a continuation of landlord and developer led poli cies there will be a continuation of suffering for young and work ing class people i t could also mean that the current 70% of 18 24 year olds considering emigra tion could become a realit y i n the choice bet ween our housing needs and profit, our needs must always come first We need an immediate ban on all evic tions rents must be slashed to affordable levels cuckoo and vulture funds must be banned and the buildings owned by these corporate landlords must be seized and brought into public ownership We need a major roll out of public homes built on pub lic land tragically for many, this crisis will only deepen We need ac tion now.

S ocialist Par t y TD M ick Barr y addressing 5,000 strong cost of living demonstration in Cork on 17 S eptember

Hundreds

Why you should march on 29 oc tober

by laura fitzgerald

roSA Socialist Feminist Move ment has made the call for a march for health, equality and bodily au tonomy on Saturday 29 october, to commemorate Savita on the tenth anniversary of her death, with femi nist, LGBTQ, anti racist, trade union and student union activists all urged to participate Socialist Party activists across the island are en thusiastically building for this demonstration

1. Abor tion rights are under attack in many countries around the world in 2021, the chinese dictatorship the same horrors that enforced the one child policy indicated its in tentions to restrict abor tion access Poland’s extreme right government brought in a new abor tion ban in 2020 Viktor orban has signalled an intention to roll back on abor tion ac cess in hungar y via the cruel and medically dubious September 2022 measure of forcing anyone request ing an abor tion to “listen to the foetal hear tbeat ”

italy ’s new far right government poses a substantial threat to abortion rights there, in a countr y where ac cess is already patchy and curtailed by widespread “conscientious objec tion” in the often catholic influenced hospitals finally, in the uS, the most

famous gain of second wave femi nism, the roe V Wade ruling that paved the way for federal abortion legalisation, was overturned earlier this year by a coterie of christian fun damentalists who hold power in the Supreme court this counter revolu tion was spearheaded by the repub lican Party, and aided and abetted by the mealy mouthed “safe, legal and rare” Democrats who consistently failed to legislate for roe

2. Still travelling for healthcare limits in the law and access are leav ing people behind in 2021, 206 trav elled form the South and 161 travelled from the Nor th to access abor tion care in britain fur ther more, the dire state of trans health care on this island means trans and nonbinar y folk ’s only hope of access ing gender affirming care often in volves travelling abroad Gender affirming and abor tion care must be free and accessible, decriminalised, locally available and devoid of pater nalistic gatekeeping

3 We said ‘Never Again’ izabela, November 2021 agnieszka t, December 2022 these are at least two recent deaths of women that have been publicised by their griev ing families, as a result of Poland’s 2020 ban both cases are eerily remi niscent of that of Savita who pre

sented to a Galway hospital having an inevitable miscarriage at 17 weeks Savita was denied a life sav ing abor tion that she repeatedly re quested, because of the existence of a foetal hear tbeat When izabela died, protestors flooded the streets under the slogan, “she had a hear t beat too”, just as we had done for Savita in the post roe world in the uS, dystopian repor ts are emerging of lawyers being called in before ec topic pregnancies can be treated, of nurses afraid to dispense the morn

ing after pill to rape victims, of can cer patients’ treatment delayed, and of poor young women bir thing chil dren they can’t afford and didn’t want to have We know abor tion bans affect the poorest, the most marginalised, the sickest, the young, the rural, those trapped in abusive relationships most of all

4. National Maternity Hospital the government’s plan to gift a new National Maternity hospital to the Sisters of charity is a reason to

march We simply cannot accept that this is ‘done and dusted’ and a move ment must emerge to force a change of course Some of the same brass necked politicians who ver y belat edly were forced to support repeal and cynically selfied from the ‘yes’ victor y platform in Dublin castle are behind this plan We have to put the pressure on for public and secular, and nothing less all vestiges of church influence have to be ejected from public health and education

5. Anti racism Savita was a woman of colour and migrant healthcare worker dentist who died as a result of ireland’s abor tion ban We know that women of colour are dispropor tionately af fected by maternal deaths and poor outcomes for neonates according to a 2017 maternal death inquir y, women born outside ireland were over represented in the uS, mater nal deaths before roe was over turned were already ver y high for a rich countr y, with black women three times more likely to die in childbir th than white women Now the chilling effect of abor tion restric tions on doctors will increase danger in pregnancy, and that will effect black women most sharply. fighting for abor tion rights is a black lives Matter and anti racist concern

prices, record profits: fight back against the bosses’ class war

by Mark Johnson

WOrkI ng claSS people are beginning to fight back against the devastating cost of living cr isis

In September, a protest in Cork or ganised by various groups demanding action in the Budget mobilised 5,000 on the cit y centre streets, followed a week later by a Cost of Living Coali tion protest in D ublin of 15,000 These are the largest protests we ’ ve seen in the South of Ireland since before the pan demic, but this is only the start

Even with the measures taken by the government in the Budget, going fur ther than it would have due enormous pressure from below, by ear ly next year households could face average gas and electricity bills of €6,000, on top of ex tortionate rents, steep increases in food prices and some of the highest child care costs in Europe The Budget hasn’t fundamentally changed any of this

Taking on the profiteers

This crisis is only going to get worse So we have to resist: we have to organise in our communities, workplaces, colleges and schools There’s no other way to ease the hardship we ’ re all facing

The government certainly isn’t going

to help us It used the Budget to rehash the propaganda about ‘ limited funds’ and ‘global instability ’ to tr y to convince us that it ’ s done all it can do for us, and now we just have to get on with it

Meanwhile, big businesses inc lud ing the energ y companies, cor porate land lords and supermarkets continue to make huge profits from the pr ice rises already in place with nothing to stop them imposing fur ther r ises whenever they feel like it

This is what inflation amounts to: an attempt by big business interests to in crease their profits by passing the bur den to us The government par ties won’t act against this profiteer ing quite the opposite They will facilitate it as much as they can because in their warped capitalist logic profit making inc luding directly and indirectly from miser y is not the problem but the so lution to our economic woes

Organise to fight back

We can only rely on our own power We need to build a new movement now to fight back and turn the tide against the government and the profiteers

The water charges movement showed the power of br inging huge numbers onto the streets but also the

power of working c lass people getting organised in our own communities We need to build networks of resistance which really involve people and coor dinate action

We also need a fightback from work ers, both in their own workplaces and unions The government and union leaders have cooked up a deal which of fers public sector workers 6 5% over two years a pay cut in real terms W hile this is likel y to be accepted, nothing should be ruled out in terms of further actions by public sector workers and unions if the situation worsens as is expected

This is not a strong government and united str ike action could win The wave of str ikes in Br itain and the North show that workers will respond But if the current union leadership won’t do this workers need to take the initiative for strike action from below

We need socialist change

This is a capitalist cost of living crisis: profiteering and the chaos of the mar ket is driving it More than enough re sources exist in our society to meet the needs of all but profit stands in the way and needs to be cut out

That means taking the key sectors of

economy out of the hands of big business and the super rich and bring ing them into public ownership with

working c lass people, not c apitalist profiteers, at the hear t of decision making in the economy

Tens

thousands took to the street in the af termath of Savita's tragic death in

truss’ thatcherite budget for the super-rich

by ann orr

"I S Ta n d by the pac kage we an nounced" said liz Tr uss in a BBc inter view on Sunday, 2 October S he said she was full y committed to scrapping the 45% income tax on the wealthiest l ess than 24 hours later, her gover nment was forced into a hu miliating u tur n on this measure however, this was only one of the nu merous budget details which consti tute the big gest tax cuts, mostl y benefitting the super r ich, since the ear ly 1970s

For example, the decisions to remove the cap on bankers' bonuses and stop the previously planned increase in cor poration tax remain W hile speculation is r ife on possible fur ther u turns by this weak government, including on the issue of benefits increases due to infla tion, the underlying aim remains: lower tax regime for the rich Truss and her cronies are not attempting to hide this fact

Tories in turmoil

For Truss and chancellor of the excheq uer Kwasi Kwarteng the situation has surel y been embarrassing From their point of vie w they should have been joining a celebrator y and unifying party conference following their mini bud get Instead, they have been widel y lampooned and pushed to renege on

key policies Tr uss ' attempt to blame Kwarteng has also had limited impact with rumours circulating that MPs are already submitting letters of no confi dence in her S he won the election based on the Tor y membership but that has not translated into increased support from her MPs, under lining the divisions within the Tor ies that have increased over recent years, and which is only ac celerating given the economic turmoil Britain is in and the fact that the most recent poll put Labour ahead of the To ries by 25%!

They are tr ying to save face and, in their words, stop the "distraction" from the var ious energ y related measures they are implementing with this budget The government is borrowing money to cover the expected costs of £60 billion for their energ y suppor t scheme over the next six months Cus tomers are due to be given £400 off their bills In realit y this is a massive handover of public money to pr ivate energ y companies F irmus energ y in the Nor th, for example, increased its prices by a further 56 3% at the begin ning of October, showing how quickly

companies can eat into these payments W hile private profit continues to be the dr iver there is no way of controlling spiralling costs The energ y sector must be nationalised and brought under democratic control by workers so that meeting need, not making pr ivate profit, becomes the aim

Inequality leading to revolt Truss now claims that they did not pre pare the ground for their sweeping budget measures, but this is not simply a question of a poor PR strateg y! The stoc k markets responded quic kl y and

support the posties: 155,000 royal Mail workers on strike

by Paddy Meehan, communication worker belfast

rOya l m a I l workers who de liver post and parcels across the nor th and Br itain will be on str ike three days in October. T his is shaping up to be a titanic str ug gle bet ween 115,000 members of the communica tions Workers Union (cWU) against a belligerent c hief executive intent on railroading through a below infla tion pay offer while at the same time smashing the hard fought for ter ms and conditions of the workforce

Royal Mail had historically evaded privatisation, unlike the state utilities sold off in the 1980s under Thatcher Telecoms, gas, energ y and rail were all sold off to make significant profits for big businesses over the years It would be left to the Conser vative / Lib Dem coalition government in 2013 to priva tise the Royal Mail, a move fiercely op posed by the workforce well warned of the race to the bottom that would ensue

Workers’ determination

Despite pr ivatisation, the strength of the workplace industrial rep structures inside the company has so far preser ved important rights for workers partici pation in shif t selection, working prac tices being overseen by the union both in overarching agreements and on the shop floor This has led to a conveyor belt of company executives hellbent on attempting to take on and destroy the union

O ver the course of 2019 strike bal lots with over whelming majorities for str ike action and incredible le vels of union member par ticipation gener

ally in the high 70% (British anti trade union law requires over 50% of union members vote in a strike ballot before it ’ s deemed legal more than many Tor y MP constituencies or even the re cent Tor y leadership race!)

The recent strike ballots, first on pay and then the company ’ s response to ba sic all y tear up all agreements, are the continuation of this battle af ter the temporar y truce called due to the pan demic Covid also meant a significant increase in revenue in the already prof itable parcel section of the company, with the huge surge of things like test kits being sent by post

Shameless executives

Senior executives decided to share the

£758 million in profits, not with essen tial workers who kept the ser vice going through loc kdowns, but with senior shareholders and themselves

It was with one of these senior share holders, Daniel Křetínský, that the union had uncovered secret meetings that had taken place to break up and sell off par ts of the company to this venture capitalist So underhanded and undermining of the public ser vice was this that e ven the ne w Tor y Cabinet has been forced to launch an official in vestigation under competition law

Support the posties!

It ’ s c lear this is a fight for the future of the company and the union This is happening in the context of a major

wave of str ike action over pay in rail, manufactur ing, loc al author ities and por ts with mil lions more being bal loted in educ ation, health and civil ser vices Even within the CWU alone there are two other significant disputes that have seen a total of over 155,000 members taking action in the past few weeks It ’ s c lear these disputes need to be linked up, co ordinated and esc a lated in order to br ing the maximum pressure to bear on the employers and the ne w, flailing Tor y go ver nment of Liz Truss

sharply to the budget, with the pound falling to a record low against the dollar on global stock markets Investors are worried about the governments' plans likely both due to the borrowing sug gested as well as an understanding that tr ic kle down policies don’t actuall y work Economists warned at the begin ning of 2022 that the top 1% of UK households have 230 times more wealth than those in the bottom 10%, and the Tor ies' plans will fur ther amplify this

Truss may hope she can ride out any such groundswell of fur y but clearly her MPs disagree Two days before the u turn on income tax for the rich, hun dreds of thousands joined protests in over 50 locations across the UK stating ‘Enough is Enough!’ If these protests now turn into consistent and active campaigns in local areas, linking with and supporting striking workers in the railways, Royal Mail, telecommunica tions and, soon, likely also health and education, it would constitute a power ful force

The Tories have already shown they can be pushed back W hen working class people are organised we can push not only for the scrapping of measures that benefit the rich at the expense of workers, but also for the measures actu ally needed to deal with spiralling costs including nationalisation of energ y and other key sectors of the economy

Royal Mail posties are part of this fight but it's clear they are under attack and they must be supported to ensure the union and working conditions are preser ved The CWU’s announcement of 19 days of strike action in the run up to XMas is a significant escalation and one that must be supported and matched by the British and Northern Irish trade union movement Royal Mail must be brought into public ownership and run as a vital utility under workers’ control and management to ensure the ser vice is protected and extended

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwar teng want to create a low tax regime for the super rich in Britain

Postal strike is par t of growing strike wave in Britain and the Nor th

On 16 September, a 22-year old Kurdish woman called Zhina (Mahsa) Amini died in a hospital in Tehran after being arrested by the morality police for not wearing her hijab in accordance with the state mandated laws, writes Harper Cleves. Eye witness accounts suppor t the claim that police brutality was the cause of her untimely death.

strike, with many professors refusing to teach c lasses as well

According to official lists, students have boycotted c lasses at up to 80 uni versities across the countr y, and the mood only seems to be growing as state repression amplifies In one c lip filmed in the Tehran metro station, students and young people chant “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are all together!”

What is needed

Z

h I na amI nI ’S killing acted as a final straw in a countr y wrought with gender based and national op pression, relig ious control, and g row ing inequalit y mere hours af ter her death protestors g athered outside of the Tehran hospital, and weeks later in October the momentum of those op posing women ’ s oppression and the reg ime only seems to be g rowing

“Women, Life, Freedom” Capitalism as a c lass based system relies fundamentall y on the oppression of women and LGBTQI+ people; this is the case globally, as can be seen with at tac ks on bodil y autonomy, women ’ s rights and trans rights from the United States, to China, to Italy

However, in Iran, the connection be tween gender based oppression and the system is even more starkly apparent be cause religious ideolog y is such a crucial tool used to divide working c lass men and women by turning women into sec ond c lass citiz ens, and pushing them back into the home In Iran, over 2,000 women and gender noncomforming people are killed ever y year, primarily in their homes and by people they know, but also by the state Just a week before Zhina’s untimely death, two LGBTQI+ activists were sentenced to death for “spreading homosexual ideolog y ”

Kurdish people, as well as other na tional and ethnic minorities in Iran, have long faced br utal repression Zhina Amini was unable to use her Kurdish name, and was public l y c alled Mahsa

The repression of women, LGBTQI+ people, and national and ethnic minori ties is cr ucial to the regime ’ s abilit y to maintain control It is for this reason that President Raisi, who assumed his posi tion in 2021, has been attempting to c lamp down on women ’ s rights: because

he sees their revolutionar y potential

As a young woman in universit y in Iran said to a G uardian repor ter : “ We will not tolerate their restr ictions and not adhere to the regime ’ s str ict dress code It is our lives, and we have the right of choice ”

System in crisis

Iran is seeing growing rates of pover t y and hunger, and c limate change threat ens to exacer bate these issues Recent data shows that the wealthiest 20% of the population in Iran controls 47% of the countr y ’ s wealth, while the lowest 20% holds only 0 5% Last year Iranian people faced an inflation rate of 45% Of course, sanctions by imper ialism is an important factor behind this crisis, but so is the pro capitalist policies of succes sive government ’ s of this clerical state, its revolutionar y rhetoric notwithstanding

It is not difficult to understand, then, why young women ’ s fight against the re pressive regime is being met with soli dar it y from many working c lass and poor men; e ven those who may have been impacted by misog ynistic ideas In the context of capitalist crisis, it is c lear the repression of women is also the re pression of the masses, and that the regime, and the whole system is in the crosshairs As one popular slogan states “ This is the last message our target is the whole system ”

Youth at the forefront

Young people in particular see no future for themselves and therefore are at the forefront of this movement Much of this action is spontaneous; with young people and students spilling onto the streets in response to the state repression and mounting death toll However, there are also organised responses from stu dents Doz ens of universities are on

A unified movement of the working class in Iran is crucial to challenge the rule of the clerics and their dictatorial rule The seeds for such a movement can already be seen in the recent upsurge that gripped the countr y Iranian teachers, a field dom inated by women, have organised national strikes in solidarity with protestors and against the regime, strikes have also taken place in the Kurdish areas of the Iranian State and Iran’s powerful oil workers have also threatened to take action

The movement needs a programme that breaks with the r ule of c apitalism and fights for socialist change if it is to truly liberate women, queer people, na tional minorities, and the working c lass and poor Protestors should aim to not simply overthrow the current regime, but re establish the ‘shoras’ democratic workers’ councils of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and through them fight for socialist transformation: public owner ship and democratic planning of the economy to meet the needs of all A so cialist Iran, linked to a struggle for a so cialist Midd le East, can be one based on true equality and democracy

Mass rev

iran 1979: Workers' revolutio

by Donal Devlin

“My name is Oz ymandias, King of Kings; L ook on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

“No one can overthrow me I have the support of 700,000 troops, most of the people and all of the workers ” mohammad reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, June 1978

hI S TO ry I S rarel y kind to the bombastic hubr is of murderous dictators; within months of the Shah’s above asser tion, he was unceremoni ousl y forced into exile on 16 Januar y 1979 Beginning with street protests in the autumn of 1978 and quic kl y e vol ving into mass str ikes, a re volu tionar y mo vement of the working c lass and poor brought an end to his hated dictatorship.

A murderous regime

The S hah was initiall y brought to power in 1941 by British imperialism, later he bec ame Iran’s absolute r uler after a coup in 1953 toppled the govern ment of Prime Minister and radical na tionalist Mohammad Mosaddegh This was orchestrated by both the CIA and MI5, the U S and Britain’s intelligence agencies, af ter Mosaddegh had nation alised the countr y ’ s oil reser ves Demo cratic niceties were dispensed with in the interests of private profit

The Shah’s Iran, alongside Israel and S audi Arabia, bec ame a cr ucial all y of US imperialism in the Midd le East It was the loc ation for the CIA’s head quarters in the region, and by the time of the re volution, the US had 24,000 “militar y advisors” in the countr y It helped establish SAVAK, the regime ’ s notorious secret police, that acted as an omnipresent hit squad that tortured and murdered tens of thousands of political prisoners

The S hah also built a colossal mili tar y apparatus that by the time of the 1970s bec ame the largest impor ter of militar y weapons in the world Between 1971 and 1976 alone it purchased $8 billion in weaponr y from the U S

Extreme inequality Ruthless repression was combined with attempts to rapid l y industr ialise the countr y, what the S hah c alled his “ W hite Revolution”, believing he could modernise Iran to become an advanced capitalist state

The Shah and his cronies lived a lav ish lifestyle on the backs of Iran’s eco nomic successes In 1967 he gave himself the title of ‘King of Kings’ (an unintentional nod to S hell y ’ s O z y mandius) and four years later he hosted a three day global ceremony costing $22 million to celebrate his r ule A special location for the festivities was built on the site of Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia, with a variet y of the wor ld ’ s capitalist and Stalinist leaders in atten

dance At a time when 44% of Iranians lived below the subsidence poverty line, 18 tons of the finest food, inc luding 30kg of caviar, were flown in from Paris S uch an obscene display of opulence only fuelled the resentment of the Iran ian masses towards the Shah

Revolutionary uprising

Extreme inequality, rapid industrialisa tion, state repression, oppression of na tional and ethnic minorities, and, af ter 1975, economic cr isis, all bec ame the combustible material for a revolutionar y explosion That ’ s exactly what happened on 7 S eptember 1978 Af ter a year of growing protests, 2 million took to the streets of Tehran The Shah responded with the imposition of martial law and 2,000 were massacred on the streets

This repression onl y propelled the re volutionar y process A major str ike movement developed with the key sec tions of Iran’s working class moving into action Oil, coal and transport workers all str uc k, with the latter refusing to allow police and army to travel on the trains

Workplaces were occupied and dem ocratic all y elected str ike committees took over their running As the move ment mushroomed, rank and file sol diers began to mutiny and came over to the side of the masses Peasants began to seize land and evict their land lords

A force that had authority in the rev olution were the Shia c lerics and their leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who had

volt shakes iran

on overthrows the shah

come into opposition to the Shah’s rule in the ear ly 1960s Their populist mes sage against inequality allowed them to build a base amongst Iran’s poor

The failure of the left However, this was far from being an un contested influence on and leadership of the revolutionar y events of 1979 The Tudeh (the Iranian Communist Party) and other forces on the lef t also had a significant base of support in key work places and shoras (democratically elected workers' councils that emerged in the

period following the toppling of the Shah) They constituted a real basis for the establishment of a democratic social ist state in Iran The policies of the Khomeini, notably the mandator y wear ing of the hijab, were met with mass op position On International Women’s Day 1979, hundreds of thousands of women took to the streets for six con secutive days to protest this measure

The aforementioned lef t forces largel y tail ended Khomeini, however, despite his pro c apitalist, reactionar y policies and opposition to the shoras In

doing so, they squandered an opportu nit y for socialist change and allowed counter revolution to triumph By 1981, the Tudeh and the organised lef t and workers’ movement were suppressed and many of its activists imprisoned

A critical lesson of this period is the need for a revolutionar y socialist alter native that stands against imper ialist and monarchist rule, as well as the theo cratic rule of the existing regime in Iran another variant of capitalism that like wise stands for a system of exploitation and national and gender oppression

turning point

by conor Payne

A F T e r W H AT appeared to be a pe riod of stalemate, the dynamics of the war in Ukraine have again shifted At the time of writing, russ ian forces have suffered significant defeats and losses of territor y in both the east and south of Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have captured the key russian stronghold of Lyman in Nor thern donetsk, opening up the possibility of advances deeper into donetsk and Luhansk.

in Kherson in southern ukraine, ukrainian forces appear to have ad vanced 30km past where the front stood before the offensive began, marking the biggest advances in the south of the countr y since the russian invasion began in addition to the loss of territor y, the losses threaten key russian supply lines, adding fur ther difficulties to their flailing war effor t

defeat & demoralisation there are many factors behind this change in the situation undoubtedly, the big supply of weaponr y to the uk rainian militar y by the uS and other western imperialist powers has played a role but political dynamics are equally impor tant While uk rainian troops are motivated to fight against an invasion and in defence of their na tional right to self determination, morale is seemingly low in the russ ian army in many cases, it appears that russian troops have fled or easily given up in the face of the counter of fensive there is also the growing re sistance among uk rainian people in the captured territories against an oc cupying army however, this dynamic does not mean the end of the war but can actu ally escalate it Putin’s regime is un doubtedly weakened, including the threat of increased criticism and oppo sition from within the russian capital ist establishment and state machinery to lose the war would be calamitous from his point of view as it would mean the collapse of his regime he has responded with a ‘’partial mobilisa tion’’ in reality mass conscription

A renewed anti war movement?

Without adequate supplies, weaponry or training, thousands of mainly work ing class young men will be sent to the frontlines as cannon fodder the Putin regime has also organised “referen dums” in the remaining areas under its control to validate its annexation by russia Needless to say, any vote car ried out in a war zone under the con trol of an occupying army is not a

genuine democratic expression of the will of people living in these areas the announcement of mobilisation has already led to renewed anti war protests on the streets of russia. Sig nificantly, these have included some organic protests by those facing con scription or their relatives the impor t of mobilisation is that the impact of the war on work ing class people in russia will sharpen as more and more face the prospect of them or their loved ones being sent to the front this poses the possibility of a re newed anti war movement with broader suppor t in society or even a social explosion against the Putin regime

Imperialist machinations

Simultaneously, the uS and other Western imperialist powers can see in the russian defeats a chance to push fur ther against Putin they can also escalate their involvement While the people of uk raine want to defend themselves against invasion, the uS, britain and others are using this war as an oppor tunity to extend their own power, profits and influence and to push back against their rivals russia and china

their suppor t for the Zelensky gov ernment in Kyiv does not come with out strings attached and in the last months work ing class people in uk raine have been hit by attacks on pension rights, workers’ rights and large scale privatisation, including in the armaments industr y and food and energy sectors No solution coming from either the russian regime or the Western bloc or any other imperialist powers can be in the interests of the ordinar y people of uk raine

capitalism means war the solution lies in a mass movement led by the working class in ukraine to resist the invasion and occupation, linked with a mass anti war movement rooted in the russian working class which fights for the complete with drawal of russian troops this war is the horrendous consequence of the domination of our world by imperialist blocs, each representing the big busi ness interests of their countries and competing for access to markets, re sources and spheres of influence it is a consequence of the capitalist system itself which puts profit ahead of human life and thus always gener ates war. We also need a struggle across the world to end capitalism and imperialism and create the basis for a socialist world without war, pover ty and environmental destruction

Mussolini-inspired, far-rightcoalition gains power in italy

by James Mccabe

T h e fa r rI g h T around eu

rope loudly celebrated as giorgia meloni bec ame Ital y ’ s ne w pr ime minister meloni received letters of cong ratulations from hard r ight fig ures such as v ictor Orbán in hungar y and mar ine l e Pen in france. her “ Brothers of Ital y ” par t y topped the poll and allowed her to for m a hard r ight coalition gover nment with two other par ties.

W hile many mainstream media out lets across Europe assured readers and vie wers that Meloni had long ago abandoned the neo fascist politics of her youth, her victor y undoubted l y spread a wave of fear amongst mi grants, women, people of colour, and queer folk across Italy

Threat to women, migrants & LGBTQ people

In a speech for the S panish far r ight Vox party back in June, she thundered: “ yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideolog y, yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death ”

Although she ’ s Ital y ’ s first woman prime minister, she wants to roll back rights for women, repeatedly emphasis ing women ’ s “right not to abort ” Her anti choice language is not just rheto r ic In the Marche region, where the

Brothers of Ital y has been in power since 2020, the party refused to apply a directive from the central government to make all hospitals suppl y abor tion pills to those who request them Meloni derogator il y refers to mi grants and refugees as c landestini (“ il legals”), and has disgracefully proposed a naval blockade of the Mediterranean

Centrist establishment embraces Meloni

In her election c ampaigning, Meloni went to great lengths to emphasise that the capitalist establishment across Eu rope has nothing to fear in terms of her victor y upsetting the economic or geopolitical status quo She urged her political allies not to make pledges that they cannot keep and argued that “the pr ior ities are to cut taxes, to suppor t families and the competitiveness of businesses ” S pecific all y arguing for cuts to cor porate profits, she c laims that her coalition is on the “centre right ” and that she thinks like Margeret Thatcher

To ease the fears of the ruling classes of Europe and the US, she has under lined that she ’ s abandoned her EU scepticism In a frenz y of pro West rhetoric, her government has vowed to boost defence spending in order to “stand up to” China and Russia These factors could explain the generall y muted or neutral response to her elec

tion by the mainstream liberal press and politic al establishment Hillar y Clinton went as far as to say that Mel oni ’ s election as pr ime minister will “ open doors for women ” As long as the narrow interests of western imperialism are ser ved, then it would seem that the rabid xenophobia and bigotr y of these parties can be over looked by the cen trist capitalist establishment

Crisis of capitalism in Italy

Almost a quar ter of Ital y ’ s youth are out of work and not in school And while millions of working class families are struggling to keep their heads above water, the banks and big business in Ital y are making record profits S ince the end of Wor ld War II, Italy has had 70 governments, at an average of one e ver y 14 months The past four years have seen a number of ec lectic coali

a strong dollar is a harbinger of recession to come

by Michael o’brien

Th e raP I d dec line in the value of the pound ster ling relative to the dollar in the af ter math of the re cent ‘mini budget ’ in the Uk has o vershadowed a pre existing trend most major cur rencies in recent months were dec lining in such a manner, albeit not as spectacular ly as the pound under liz Tr uss ’ s ne w premiership

Counter intuitivel y, a so c alled ‘strong dollar’ is an indicator of extreme pessimism in the world money markets Fundamentall y it reflects investors seeking out the ‘ least bad ’ location for their wealth in the form, for example, of US treasur y bonds rather than other major currencies, cr y pto currencies, real estate, artworks etc

The reserve currency

The role the dollar plays in the wor ld economy is disproportionately greater than the size of the US economy itself W hile the US geo political hegemony is being challenged its economy still ac counts for around 25% of global GDP and 10% of wor ld trade Howe ver, some 90% of international transactions, 60% of currenc y reser ves and 50% of international loans are denominated in dollars

Therefore, an appreciating dollar can have de vastating downstream effects when the incomes of working people and revenues of businesses and excheq uers are denominated in their native non dollar currency, but their expendi tures on goods and ser vices from the US or loan repayments increase

These changing investment deci sions and consequential movement in currency values are themselves a reflec tion that among the c apitalist c lass globally there is a consensus (accepted by institutions such as the OECD) that a recession lies ahead, if it has not al ready technic all y begun This is e vi denced by dec lining investment and profit margins of many companies being squeez ed by the likes of high energ y prices

Global recession

The indic ators of a global recession were apparent as ear ly as 2019 but the ‘normal’ course of the capitalist business c yc le was obscured by a succession of shocks from Covid in 2020 to the re sultant upending of suppl y chains, feeding into inflation and exacerbated by geo political factors, especially the war in Ukraine

The key policy employed by the in stitutions of capitalism such as the Fed eral Reser ve and European Central

Bank in recent years throughout the re cent shocks has been so called ‘Q uan titative Easing’ This is a technical term to descr ibe the loaning of money to commercial banks at low or no interest, as a means to encourage borrowing and

investment by private companies The reality is that this ‘cheap money ’ mainly ended up fuelling speculation in prop ert y rather than being invested in the productive economy

In the context of inflation and the

tions, and national unity governments headed by technocrats It ’ s not surpris ing, then, that people have become dis illusioned with politics and that there was a historically low turnout for this election

In contrast to today, electoral turnout consistently stood above 90% until the 1980s Italian societ y once had mass parties with millions of members After the fall of Benito Mussolini ’ s fascist dictatorship, the membership of the Italian Communist Par t y grew to 2 3 million in 1947, for example

Divide and rule politics W hat both the far right and the liberal pro capitalist establishment agree on is the lie that there’s a shortage of wealth and resources in societ y Masking the fact that there is an enormous amount of wealth in Italian and European so ciety The problem comes down to who owns and controls that wealth Right now the resources are hoarded by cor porations and the rich

A social and political movement of the lef t must now be built that unites workers and young people of all back grounds in struggle Such a movement must fight for a socialist economy that ’ s planned to meet the needs of the ma jorit y in contrast to capitalism; where the economy is geared solel y towards the enrichment of the few, who benefit from stoking division and hate

tendency of most capitalist institutions to vie w inflation in terms of money supply, the policy of quantitative easing is now dead and buried and replaced by higher interest rates in a crude attempt to cut across demand and force a reduc tion in prices

Socialist alternative needed Never ones to waste a good crisis gov ernments and the institutions of capi talism are reconciled to the recession to come and will likely seek to ‘ manage ’ it A polic y of full frontal auster it y is a difficult politic al option for govern ments ten years af ter the last great re cession Howe ver, from their perspective, allowing a recession to run its course, with resulting job losses, ser ves to discipline the working c lasses around the world who have been push ing for wage r ises to meet the r ising cost of living

These struggles by workers and the battle hardening exper ience of the great recession and auster it y years mean that it is not a foregone conc lu sion that workers will be made to just pay the price of a capitalist crisis That willingness to fight must be matched with determined leadership, organisa tion and a socialist alternative that breaks with the c apitalist market altogether

Meloni has been inspired by the vile fascist politics of B enito Mussolini

The dollar is traditionally a safe haven for capitalist investors in times of economic crisis

staffing crisis worsens as public services erode

by Valerie o’lear y

P O Or Pay and conditions, espe

cially in the context of the cost of living cr isis, and staff bur nout are leading to a difficulty in retaining and recr uiting public sector staff com bined with the effects of the covid 19 pandemic and the hardship faced par ticular ly by frontline workers has led to staff shor tages in many areas.

W hile histor ic shor tages of public sector workers existed pre pandemic, par ticular ly in healthcare and educa tion, with inflation cur rentl y at 9% and soar ing rents, there are now added difficulties for the public sector to find and hold on to staff

Stretched in health & education

There is also a difficult y in recruiting enough staff to overcome the number of staff leaving The health sector for example had a staff turnover rate of 7 7% last year To mitigate this, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has called for an additional 2,000 nurses a year to be recruited each year for the next three years Up to 20% of Medical Scientist posts were unfilled ear lier this year, which was a factor in medical scientists voting over whelm ingly to take industrial action in May over pay and conditions

This problem is not unique to health A sur vey by the Association of S econdar y Teachers’ Ireland (AST I) published ear lier this year shows that 55% of all second le vel schools have unfilled vac ancies The sur vey found that the main reasons for the lac k of

teachers was the unequal two tier pay, and the impact of an increased work load and work intensit y on teachers’ wellbeing brought on by large c lasses

At the end of August, just days before the return to school, there were 378 teacher vacancies in secondar y schools, as well as over 400 vacancies for Special Needs Assistants (SNAs)

These staff shortages have a real im pact in the provision of public ser vices It contributes to overcrowded hospitals and overcrowded c lassrooms

Union leaders watch on as services erode

This is not unique to Ireland In fact, a European Labour Authority sur vey last year showed that out of 30 countr ies sur veyed, 18 had shortages in nursing professionals, and 11 in healthcare as sistants Nursing in particular has been in the top ten of shortage occupations since 2018 In addition, the European Public S er vice Union has estimated a shortage of around 2 million health and social care workers across the EU, in c luding 600,000 nurses

This situation is bre wing anger amongst many public sector workers Public sector unions are currently being balloted for the new public sector pay deal of a 6 5% increase phased over two years W hile the majority at the tops of the public sector unions have called for the acceptance of this agreement, given the soar ing cost of living, these in creases are completel y inadequate for most public sector workers In effect, this deal will mean that public sector workers’ pay will dec line further

The trade union leadership has yet again shown no abilit y or strateg y to defend the pay and conditions of work ers A refusal of the deal by public sec tor workers ahead of Budget 2023, for instance, would have put tremendous pressure on the government to act on those issues Instead, the trade union leadership called for an acceptance of the deal with no plan of action over the coming months

Reclaim the unions to fight back W hile at the time of w r iting it looks like this deal will be accepted be cause of the lack of an alternative strat eg y from the unions public sector

workers, whether unionised or not, should organise regard less of the deal and start to demand inflation busting, double digit wage increases for decent living standards as well as make de mands for better conditions

The context of ver y signific ant shor tages of staff in essential ser vices means that public sector workers are well placed to put pressure on the gov ernment and fight for improvements for themsel ves and the ser vices they provide to the public, as well as build militant campaigns to mobilise workers across the public and private sectors to rec laim trade unions into a fighting movement based on workers’ solidarity

section 39 workers strike

by Mar tin Stafford

hU n d red S O f ‘S ection 39’ workers employed in the com munity and voluntar y sector recently took par t in three days of strike action for better pay, ter ms and conditions.

These health and social care workers are members of the unions I NMO, SIP TU and Fórsa Shockingly, many of these workers have not had a pay in crease in 14 years!

Disregard for most vulnerable

The ‘Section 39’ organisations employ ing these workers are contracted to provide ser vices on behalf of the HSE for a funding grant This essentially al lows the government to be negligent and claim no responsibility for the state of these vital ser vices

The ver y existence of Section 39 is a continuation of the historic neglect of the state for the deliver y of care for vul nerable people where control was ceded mainl y to church and char it y based organisations

These workers do extremely impor tant work, suppor ting people with a disability, the elder ly, vulnerable fami lies and young people S ome of the most marginalised people in society are depending on these under resourced, under staffed and neglected ser vices

Government responsible

The workers and families of people using the ser vices are lef t constantl y fighting for a ser vice that treats both with dignity and affords some quality of life

The government is refusing to give these workers a pay rise in the midst of a cost of living crisis We must be ver y clear that the government bears full re sponsibility for the conditions of these

ser vices and the poverty wages that go with it

Mobilise and unite

The recent action is being taken jointly by the unions, as part of the Congress of Trade Unions' ‘ Valuing Care, Valu ing Community ’ campaign It is crucial that they mobilise all social and health care workers for maximum power and unity We must not let the government

weaken the struggle by dividing work ers who are doing the same job!

These are vital ser vices that are fun damental to communities across the countr y They need to be fully incorpo rated into the public ser vice and for the workers to have equal pay and condi tions W ith inflation at around 9%, workers need pay r ises that at least match this in order to not be taking pay cuts, and they need it now

I N 1999, a student referendum introduced a new ‘special capita tion fee’ of £40 per year per stu dent to initiate and provide 50% of funding for the developments of student spor ts, social, and recreational facilities. In 2015, students consented to the lev y rising to its current €150 a year for the development of three projects: a student centre, a spor ts and community engage ment cluster, and an ar ts and cultural quar ter.

collectively, we pay close to €2,250,000 in levy a year yet, k nowing fully that they would can cel the project, the university still took that money in the last month even having the audacity to claim that the levy wasn’t contin gent upon a student centre proj ect incredibly, they still want us to pay the €150 going for ward & even want a levy increase this is completely unacceptable i t shows disrespect, dishonesty, and an un fair treatment by the college of all the students on campus.

the levy must be scraped! Stu dents should demand a refund or should demand that the college right this gross injustice by imme diately delivering the following:

l more work ing microwaves that are properly maintained l more printers for students more seating accessible by staff and stu dents all over campu l more park ing spots for students

We need action now, including the development of our promised student centre, of accessible and affordable student accommoda tion to answer to the govern ment ’s cost of living crisis forcing students to face extremely precari ous conditions there is more than enough wealth to properly fund all aspects of our education, the Gov ernment is benefitting from infla tion and their revenues are bulging

Build up the pressure! today ’s action must only be the star t Next week, on thursday, 13 october at 11 11am, students are walk ing out in all third level col leges around the countr y to de mand action on the key issues they face We should mobilise again in bigger and better num bers to continue the fight on the levy for our needs, not college greed and for all our demands mentioned above if you think that ’s what we should do, organise a students’ action group to con tinue to democratically discuss our demands, tactics & methods, and build for an escalating campaign that can win real change!

Maynooth Student Centre scrapped: We were robbed what should we do about the €150 levy?

Why is the media churning out transphobic drivel?

by ollie bell

Socialism 101 series #8

hIS JUne, rTe’s liveline ded ic ated a three day long debate with “ T he countess”, a Terf (Trans exc lusionar y “radical feminist) or ganisation g iven enour mous promi nence T his g roup staged a protest outside the national Women's coun cil of Ireland ’ s (nWcI) agm af ter being denied entr y when it sought to inter r upt the agm to protest the democratic re election of Sara P hilips, a trans woman and well known lgBTQ+ activist, onto the nWcI’s board

T

W hat followed was a deliberate dis tor tion of the group ’ s intentions Joe D uffy allowed members of The Count ess to lie about how they were refused admission to the AGM for wanting to simpl y ask questions about NWCI ’ s position to remove the word ‘ woman ’ from legalisation

This was a stark example of how the so called ‘trans debate’, that started in Br itain, has now reached the Ir ish media

Trans community under attack

These events led to outrage among the LGBTQ+ communit y D ublin Pr ide terminated its media partnership with RT E But this wasn’t the last of the Irish media stoking the fires of an at tack on the Trans community

On the morning of 7 August, trans people across Ireland woke up to four ar tic les dedicated to their lives in the Sunday Independent One such ar tic le was titled, ‘ The future will condemn us for pander ing to the trans agenda’, while others spread misinformation about the Tavistoc k Clinic and the Cass report All four artic les were be hind a paywall, meaning the S unday Independent were using the anti trans sentiment and ignorance present in so ciety as a way to make a profit

W hile Dr Paul Moran has been heavily quoted in Sunday Independent ’ s articles on Tavistock and trans health care, no articles have been published on

the dire state of the trans healthcare he oversees in Ireland Nowhere is there mention of the real issues facing trans people in Ireland, such as the 6+ year long waiting list, NGS’s outdated model of care or the increase of violence towards LGBTQ+ people

The increase in anti trans ar tic les sparked Trans & Intersex Pride D ublin to organise an protest outside The In depedent offices This transphobic media storm coincides with the in crease in violence towards the LGBTQ+ community, the most shock ing of which was the murders of Aidan Moffit and Michael Snee in April

The case of Enoch Burke

It is clear that the right wing establish ment is drumming up anti trans rhet or ic in order to divide the working c lass The bigot Enoch Burke’s case is just one example of this RTE, The In dependent and The Irish Times pumped out ar tic les with head lines c arefull y misrepresenting the reason Burke was jailed You would be led to believe that he was jailed for refusing to use a trans student ’ s pronouns To many so called free speech advocates, Burke is seen as a mar t y r against ‘transgender ism’ and was wrongfull y jailed for standing up

for what he believes in W hat really happened was a series of events that led to the school having to take legal action A High Court injunc tion was sought after Burke had repeat ed ly shown up to school despite being suspended He was jailed on 5 Septem ber indefinitel y, not for his belief s or the schools, but for breaching the order

Profiting from lies

The facts of the c ase wouldn’t have generated as many c licks, however So to tr y to grab people’s attention, c lick baity titles focusing solely on the pro noun issue were used W hat The Independent and many other Ir ish media outlets are doing is profiting from spreading misinformation and misrepresentation of the trans commu nity

The media is a non neutral body, ul timatel y it reflects the outlook and prejudices of the capitalist system and will use ever y tool it has to divide and rule the working class This mud be op posed We must build a multi gen dered, multi racial working c lass movement that fight for a socialist so ciet y based on tr ue equalit y and this allow the poison of prejudice to fester and grow

by Manus lenihan

democrac y means ever yone hav ing a say in how their society is run.

Supposedly we live in a democracy. In Ireland we have, on paper, the right to speak and write freely, the right to assemble and the right to vote though we have limits on trade union rights, the right to asy lum, and in other areas.

But when you clock in to work, democrac y comes to an abrupt halt Chances are your work place is ruled not by people you elec ted but by bosses or shareholders who live on another continent Our world is shaped by private investment decisions and imperialist machinations, over which we have no say Companies can close down or lay off staff ; local ecosystems can be polluted; wars can be waged against other countries and you have no say in any of this, even though it could mean ruin for you.

work ing class people have ver y different ideas about democrac y, as about most things. For a wealthy person, democrac y means their ‘right ’ to control their businesses and their profits in whatever way they want, even if it damages the environment, workers and consumers Any k ind of public ownership and control is an assault on their ‘rights,’ on ‘democrac y,’ on civilisation itself.

The ideas of the wealthy are spread throughout society. In schools and colleges, in mainstream discourse and in popular culture we are given a one sided histor y lesson in which socialism leads to dic tatorship

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The rights we do have are distor ted by this inequality. You can vote for a political par ty, but the par ties most likely to catch your attention are those with the most money, with the slick elec toral machines, i.e. those which are suppor ted by big business interests. You can write freely, but whether anyone reads your writing largely depends on whether you have the connec tions or the means to pay for publishing, promotion, printing, etc You have the right to a trial, but if you’re rich you can hire an expensive law yer Socialists do not accept that this is real democrac y For democrac y to be genuinely democratic it must ex tend to the wealth in society that is produced by nature and the collec tive labour of work ing class people I t must ex tend to the industr y and finance that dominate our economies Only then could we guarantee economic and social rights, such as the right to education, jobs, healthcare, housing and a sustainable energy system Only then could ever yone be freed up and empowered to par ticipate in the running of society.

But wealthy people and

In fac t, in the early period af ter the Revolution in Russia, the countr y was ruled through popular councils or ‘Soviets’ which were far more democratic than any parliament in any par t of the world today Unfor tunately, this revolutionar y democrac y couldn’t sur vive in the terrible conditions of civil war and invasion by many capitalist powers, and was ultimately betrayed by corrupt, bureaucratic forces around Stalin.

There were popular movements for socialism all over the world in the 20th centur y, and if democrac y had been allowed to run its course we would live in a more peaceful, equal and sustainable world But when the wealthy and power ful are threatened, democrac y goes out the window and they lash out with dic tatorships, religious ex tremism and fascism The world we live in today, in which capitalism reigns supreme, is not one that we have arrived at by democratic debate I t is the outcome of a thousand bloody coups and repressions

Our rights, including our democratic rights which were all won through struggle, are never safe under capitalism just look at the attacks on the rights of women and trans people, and the rise of the far right in many countries But the defence of democratic rights can also be a rallying call for millions to move into struggle against this system and for an equal and truly democratic future, which must be a socialist one.

isn’t capitalism more democratic than socialism?

The media has purposely distor ted the issues surrounding the case of Enoch Burke

The socialist

florida: hurricane ian’s destruction rooted in climate change catastrophe

by ian rivera

WI T h I n 24 hours, hur r ic ane

Ian lef t 2 7 million homes across f lorida without electricity lee and c har lotte counties have been knoc ked “off the g r id ” with 90% of homes suffer ing power outages l ee count y electr ic cooperative has shamelessl y failed inspections on near ly one fif th of all its distr ibution poles, maximizing profits at the ex pense of its customers now the resi dents of l ee count y are pay ing the pr ice.

Thousands of people in S outhwest F lor ida and O r lando were forced to evacuate their homes, of ten by boat as their homes are flooded or surrounded by waist deep brown water According to the F lorida Department of Environ mental Protection, due to excess water from the hurr ic ane, at least a doz en waste water treatment facilities in F lorida were prompted to release raw or partially treated wastewater

Destruction of ecosystem

This waste water contains not just dead l y bacter ia and disease, but also high levels of nitrogen and phosphate

F lorida is the biggest producer of phos phates for the U S Phosphate mining operations in F lorida use unsafe open air wastewater ponds, these ponds can hold hundreds of millions of gallons of waste containing radon, uranium, ra dium and other carcinogens that could now overflow into local rivers and lakes causing catastrophic levels of environ mental damage

Mar ine ecosy stems are par ticular l y vulnerable, with over a thousand man atees dying last year due to pollutants and algal blooms caused by runoffs D uring the pandemic, we saw how working people were forced to pay for the crisis Cor porations increased the cost of living to a degree where they could continue to make record profits while the working c lass faced record losses

Billions of dollars of destruction Amazon and Disney may donate some

pocket change to the F lorida Disaster Fund, but the staggering $30 50 billion estimated to rebuild the state will be paid for entirely by the working c lass F lorida already has the highest rent in creases out of any state this will likely sky roc ket as land lords will off set the cost of repairing flood damages by in creasing rent They ’ ll worsen the hous ing cr isis, while increasing their own profits

Disney, Marriott, Hilton, and other billion dollar companies are now sit ting on completely empty luxur y build

ings that could be easily converted into affordable housing to rehome the flood victims, and end the housing crisis in F lorida

Working people should not be forced to pay for the disaster that the billionaire c lass set up! It was the irre sponsible negligence of capitalists who knowingl y built fault y equipment, committed environmentall y unsafe practices, and bypassed all regulations to create the per fect storm of condi tions for a disaster

Instead of relying on the charit y of

the r ic h, we should be heavil y taxing bil lionaire cor por ations like Disne y and P ublix to br ing immediate disaster relief and repair damaged in frastructure

Accelerated by climate change

Hurricane Ian came in a year of a series of freak weather events accelerated by c limate change, which flooded the en tirety of the nation of Pakistan Hur r ic ane Ian contained 10% more rain than anticipated and hit the F lor ida coast at a devastating Categor y 5 speed this is directl y linked to c limate change, and we c an expect more weather e vents like Ian in the future Polluting cor porations c annot be al lowed to hasten the environmental de str uction of our state while also benefiting from the disasters These polluting companies must be taken from the c apitalist c lass and brought under democratic public control to begin transitioning to safer environ mental practices

The capitalist system has proven it self to be wholly incapable of dealing with the environmental effects it has brought or the many humanitarian dis asters that follow A new system is re quired to replace it, a socialist one based on being able to meet people’s needs

The working c lass has the power to force this change through a militant mass movement of people in the streets, br inging together the renters, unions, and environmental struggles as a single force, unafraid to make bold demands and take on the parasitic bil lionaire c lass directly!

al jazeera docu series shines spotlight on anti corbyn slander campaign

by rober t cosgrave

l J a Z eera has produced a three par t docu ser ies dealing with the years when the labour Par ty was led by Jeremy cor by n and the campaig n of lies and slander that was hur led ag ainst him by the Blair ite r ight wing of the par t y T he ser ies shines a light on the par ty ’ s so called ‘anti semitism cr isis’ and shows that it was a total fabr ication of the politi c al and media establishment It was used as a c y nic al factional batter ing ram ag ainst the cor by n leadership, the left of the labour Party and mem bers from muslim backg rounds

a

Lies and hysteria

For anyone watching the series it ’ s ob v i o u s t h a t a l l e g a t i on s o f “ e n d e m i c L a b o u r a n t i s e m i t i s m ” by w h i c h i t was always meant the part y L ef t was a hy ster ia whipped up by c y nic al op p on e n t s o f C o r by n ’ s l e ad e r s h i p a n d policies This ranged from traditional p ro C on s e r v a t i ve o u t l e t s l i k e T h e T i m e s a n d T h e Tel eg raph , t o t h o s e launder ing a reputation as progressive s u c h a s T h e G u a r d i a n a n d T h e Ne w Statesman, to the alleged l y “ impar tial”

From the time Corbyn was first elected leader in 2015, the majority of Labour MPs and the party bureaucracy never reconciled themselves with his leadership Af ter the 2017 General Election this campaign went into over drive To their shock and despite their overt attempts at sabotage, Corbyn, campaigning on a programme that was to the left of anything Labour had cam paigned on since the 1980s, defied the odds and denied the Tories a par lia mentar y majorit y The possibilit y of him becoming Prime Minister no longer seemed implausible After tr ying other lines of attacks, such as Corbyn being a “terrorist lover ” , antisemitism would become the obsessive focus of all attacks on Corbyn and the Labour Left

Bad faith politics

The docu ser ies makes c lear the bad faith that lay behind these attac ks Throughout, the extremel y bigotted nature of the Labour right from MPs and Peers down to local party bureau crats is revealed MPs can be virulent anti black, anti Traveller racists, Islam ophobes, take money from some of the most reactionar y and repressive regimes on the planet, and suddenl y become bonafide anti racists Accusations of

anti semitism are to be taken seriously from people who spy on Muslim mem bers, drawings up dossiers of where their children go to school! All of this is supported by the Starmer leadership of today, which is particular ly eager to drive out what remains of the Labour L ef t and make it c lear to the Br itish ruling c lass that Labour is again a safe pair of hands

The travest y remains that despite how much of a despic able operation the “anti semitism crisis” was, Corbyn and the Labour L ef t ruined their his tor ic oppor tunit y by continuing their policy of appeasement, adopting a de fensive posture and attempting to live peacefull y alongside the r ight Their weakness only invited more aggression, however, and with the taste of blood on its lips the right went on to devour the lef t From this approach followed the defeats first of the 2019 General Elec tion, and subsequently under Starmer

As British capitalism goes from crisis to crisis, the lef t needs to draw the les sons of the Corbyn period and develop a fighting approach in all fields A new party of the working c lass that breaks with the rotten politics of Blairism and the feeble politics of refromism needs to be built

The devastating consequences of Hurricane Ian in S eptember

“ The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.” James Connolly was right The immense social, political and economic crises that dominate life in the 21st centur y all testify to this truth, but the climate emergenc y gives added urgenc y to its meaning That’s why the Socialist Par ty stands for revolutionar y socialist change, and why we are organising to bring it about. We suppor t ever y right and reform that can improve life for working class people, while fighting for what’s needed We say: if capitalism can’t afford to provide for our needs then we can’t afford capitalism.

Workplace

• All workers need double digit wage rises

For a €17 an hour minimum wage

• End precarity and bogus self employ ment For guaranteed hours with perma nent contracts for all workers

• A four day work week with no loss of pay

Reduce the pension age to 60 A guaran teed decent pension for all No layoffs Open up the books and take large job shedding companies into public ownership under democratic workers’ con trol and management, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need

• Repeal the Industrial Relations Act For the

right to organise and effective action

For a fighting trade union movement that organises the unorganised and mobilises the power of its membership All officials should be elected, subject to recall and live on the wages of the workers they represent

Housing

Reduce and freeze rents at affordable lev els Ban evictions

For a major programme to build public homes Take the big construction compa nies into public ownership Seize vacant proper ties and unused land being hoarded for profit

• Provide culturally appropriate accommo dation for Travellers Nationalise the banks and repudiate the odious debt Reduce mor tgage payments to affordable levels

Public services

• End church control of schools and hospi tals full separation of church and state

For a major public works programme to build public schools, hospitals and child care facilities

• For a one tier, national health ser vice free at the point of use Bring all private hospi tals, nursing homes and pharmaceutical companies into public ownership

• Free publicly run childcare scheme for

Savita 10 Years Later

ever y community Extend fully paid parental leave to two years and provide high quality early years education

For 24 hour free counselling ser vices and education programmes to begin to tackle the mental health crisis

• Free education and training for all Abolish the Leaving Cer t system and provide a Third level place for all who want one, with a living grant for all students Build afford able, accessible student accommodation Environment

• For substantial investment in an ex panded, reliable and free public transpor t system

• End the reliance on fossil fuels keep them in the ground For extensive state in vestment in renewable energy, retrofitting homes and public buildings, and green jobs

For a just transition to a zero carbon econ omy, with no job losses or regressive car bon taxes

Take the fossil fuel companies, big agribusinesses and corporations into dem ocratic public ownership to stop the de struction of our planet for profit

Equal rights for all

• Oppose all forms of racism, sexism, homo phobia and transphobia

•

• For LGBTQ inclusive, consent based sex education in schools Fully fund trans healthcare

Reduce the voting age to 16

• Defend the right to asylum End Direct

Provision Abolish all racist immigration laws

• Black lives matter! Oppose far right division

• Fight to end gender violence, abuse and harassment in all its forms

• For a socialist feminist movement that unites the whole working class in the strug gle against oppression

For workers’ unity in Ireland

• For the unity of the working class, Protes tant and Catholic, Nor th and South, in op position to all forms of sectarianism, paramilitarism and state repression

health, education

t housing

tation,

For socialist change

• Capitalism produces inequality, environ mental destruction and war We need an in ternational struggle against this system Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally

all imperialist powers, wars and occupations No to NATO and EU militarisa tion US militar y out of Shannon

• No to corporate “free trade” agreements

to the bosses’ EU and “For tress Europe” Build a new mass par ty that organises workers and young people in struggle against all injustices and for a socialist alter native For a working class movement to bring about a left, socialist government that breaks with capitalism

• Take the key sectors of the economy

monopolies in banking, industr y, ser v ices, agriculture and big tech into public ownership under the democratic control of the working class

Replace the capitalist market with a dem ocratic socialist plan of the economy based on the interests of the over whelming ma jority of people and the environment