The Socialist January-February

RESIST TRUMPISM

& THE RISE OF A FASCISTIC BILLIONAIRE CLASS

By Robert Cosgrave

Hurtling towards capitalist catastrophe – 2024 in numbers

Breaking 1.5 °C

The year began with the news that 2023 had been the hottest year on record. Alarmingly, that record was again broken with average temperatures calculated to be 1.6 °C above pre-industrial levels – the first time it has broken the target of 1.5 °C that world leaders paid lip service to at various climate summits. This means that the ten hottest years recorded since 1850 have all been in the last decade. This meant that for the average person last year there were an extra six weeks of dangerously hot days, with that number well over 100 in the Caribbean, Indonesia, and Central America.

Global emissions up 8%

Does any of this mean that the big polluters among fossil fuel companies and others are planning to show any signs of slowing down in their destructive path? Far from it. All of the mealy mouthed pledges about moving away from fossil fuels mean nothing when presented with their needs for profit. Carbon emissions were instead at record levels with fossil fuel emissions 8% greater than they were at the signing of the Paris climate agreement in 2015. This is compounded by another record level of emissions as a result of deforestation – to open up land for

big agri-business and mining companies.

$2.4 trillion on military spending

In the face of such calamities, human and material resources that could be used to tackle the climate crisis are instead being used to inflict even more destruction on the world, including genocides in Palestine and Sudan, while also intensifying the climate crisis. In April last year global arms and military spending was reported to have reached a record $2,440 billion, with increases across every continent showing all states are becoming more and more

militarised, not only in contention with other nation-states but in repressing their own populations. Perhaps most worrying was the sharp increase and record spending on nuclear weapons by all nuclear powers that was reported in June.

123 million displaced

The two nightmares of war and climate breakdown have led to the displacement of 123 million people worldwide – a figure published in June which in reality will be even higher now. Of these, nearly half are refugees and asylum seekers who face not only the increased violence in the states they are fleeing but the

horrific violence of the states they are trying to flee to, with many forced onto increasingly dangerous routes like the hundreds of Rohingya refugees killed trying to sail to Indonesia each year fleeing repression in Myanmar.

2,200 die in Mediterranean

Deserving special condemnation however is the vicious border regime of “Fortress Europe” which led to the deaths of over 2,200 asylum seekers in the Mediterranean in 2024. On top of turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave, EU states have done

deals with Tunisia and Libya to outsource their detention camps to those states, where many face torture and sexual assault.

500 billionaires now own $10 trillion!

Amid all this misery, the world’s extremely rich elite are amassing ever great amounts of wealth. The 500 richest people hit a record combined net worth of $10 trillion in 2024. The wealthiest by far is Elon Musk, the increasingly fascistic and politically influential CEO of Tesla, who saw his fortune reach $442.1 billion, an increase of $213 billion since the beginning of 2024.

DCC attacking soup runs: Targeting the victims of poverty, not the creators

H

ENRY

JOY

By Finn McKenna

McCracken,

a leader of the Irish 1798 rebellion, observed that “the rich always betray the poor.” In 2025, the rich of Dublin and their representatives also have contempt for them, and resent any uncomfortable reminders of their existence.

This is evident in proposals mooted for Dublin City Council (DCC) bylaw changes to prohibit volunteer groups from providing on-street food and personal services to Dublin’s homeless. It represents another callous attack on some of the most vulnerable people in Irish society.

Taskforce report

Many ordinary people are rightly outraged at this suggestion, which comes from Taoiseach Simon Harris’s Dublin City Taskforce report, published last October. Incredibly, those pushing the notion that volunteers providing soup runs are part of the problem, not the solution to the issue of glaring poverty in the City Centre, have the gall to portray these proposals as an act that’s protecting the “dignity” and “safety” of the recipients of these services.

But this veneer masks the reality: with ever-increasing numbers trapped in homelessness – with a record 15,000

now in emergency accommodation as per the most recent shameful figures –the state is embarrassed at the realworld visibility of this disaster.

The cynical veneer of concern

The Taskforce report argued that the model of on-street delivery in “highprofile locations risks the privacy, dig-

nity and the safety of people using the service, attracts anti-social behaviour and drug dealing, and degrades the public realm.” (our emphasis)

The last part is particularly revealing. The parties of Irish capitalism have decimated much of the City with a decade of austerity and many more decades of neglect and poverty, result-

ing in social crises ranging from addiction to drug dealing (which overlap), and then bemoan the consequences of their political decision-making.

Perhaps more constructive and humane approaches, such as investing in a national public health service, expanding social services, implementing

drug policy based on ending the criminalisation of drug abuse and building adequate and accessible public housing on a mass scale, would present more lasting solutions. It would also help those who need high-level care to recover.

The parties of the rich want to establish mechanisms which would push the most impoverished of the population out of the city in a cynical attempt at cosmetics tailored to tourists and big businesses.

Action to stop proposals

People Before Profit councillors on DCC submitted an emergency motion to oppose the implementation of these bylaws. If passed, this motion would materially reduce the provision and distribution of food and essential services for homeless people, as no alternatives currently exist. This motion should be supported.

Hundreds of people mobilised for a Dublin Food Not Bombs (the self-organised groups who altruistically take it upon themselves to provide care in the face of mass state neglect) protest outside City Hall on 6 January. This is an important start to building a movement to fight for a Dublin City geared towards our needs, such as ending the housing crisis, not one run to suit the interests of Ireland’s corporate elite.

Soup kitchens act as vital lifeline for people who are homeless

Market system leads to record homelessness & housing insecurity

By Aislinn O’ Keeffe

2025 BEGAN with the news that a record 15,199 people accessed emergency accommodation in November. Of this number, 2,166 of these were families. Single-parent families, overwhelmingly headed by women, scandalously make up more than half of that number.

These figures do not take into account the ‘hidden homeless’—people who are forced to ‘couch surf’, sleep in cars, or squat in non-residential buildings. The Simon Community recently estimated this number at 30,000. Also not included in these figures are the estimated 290,000 people who depend on family and friends for accommodation.

A rental nightmare

Since 2006, the increasing inaccessibility of home ownership has driven double the number of households, now more than one in five, to depend on the private rental sector. This has its own precariousness. Research shows that the majority of families who become homeless do so because they have lost their rented accommodation.

Additionally, ‘Generation Rent’ has been forced into an unhealthy dependence on landlords through the Government’s insistence on relying on the market to provide housing. Unsurprisingly, most renters state a preference for the security and peace of mind of home ownership, with only 6% of people renting by choice.

Due to the artificially created shortage in housing, renters are subject to the whims of their landlords. This has

resulted in increases in the cost of rent year on year, seeing an average 8% increase in 2024. Many renters are now paying over 50% of their income on rent alone, leaving them to struggle to afford essentials such as food, electricity and heating.

Additionally, landlords can stipulate whether a tenant can have visitors, own a pet, or in the case of students, whether they can stay in a rented property at weekends. Many tenants are also fearful of requesting basic maintenance in a property for fear that the landlord will raise the rent or evict them. All these factors give a landlord inordinate control over a tenants’ quality of life and even life choices.

‘Generation rent’ continues to encapsulate adults from their 20s up to 65 and beyond, meaning that the crisis in housing is crossing generations. While about

half of homeowners were aged 26-yearsold in 1991, this had risen to age 36 by 2022. This lack of housing security has forced many 30- and 40-year-olds to put their life plans, including starting a family on hold. Rent precarity has also contributed to significant worry, alienation and mental health issues. Renting in Ireland is no longer a coming of age stage for people in their 20s before they ‘settle down’ with a house of their own. Instead, it has become a protracted reality of precarity and insecurity with no end in sight.

New movement to fight new government

Successive governments have left the provision of housing to the private market, leading to self-serving practices based on greed and an insatiable thirst for profit. It is clear that the ‘freer’ the

Obituary: Paddy Hill (1944-2025)

By Dave Vallely

“THE POLICE told us from the start that they knew we hadn’t done it. They told us they didn’t care who done it. They told us that they were going to frame us. Justice? I don’t think them people in there have got the intelligence or the honesty to spell the word, never mind dispense it. They’re rotten!”

This searing rebuke of the British justice system was delivered on the steps of the Old Bailey criminal court in London in 1991 by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six who has died aged 80.

Paddy and five others were falsely imprisoned for 16-and-a-half years after being wrongly convicted for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings by the Provisional IRA, which killed 21 people and maimed and injured more than 180.

Paddy never submitted to this injustice and, as a result, estimated that he spent about half of his time imprisoned in solitary confinement. Subject to torture by the British State, it was only 18 years after his conviction was overturned that Paddy Hill finally won the right to two months of trauma coun-

Report: 89% of disabled women have suffered abuse

By Marie-Claire Jennequin

A RECENT study by Trinity College’s school of Social Work and Social Policy titled ‘Disabled Women’s Experience of Intimate Partner Abuse in Ireland’ reveals harrowing statistics about intimate partner abuse (IPA) among disabled women. It uncovers the emotional, physical, and systemic violence endured by these women, highlighting the critical need for change.

market, the more restrictive the lives of those at its mercy. To be liberated from the clutches of greedy landlords on a mass scale, a public house building programme such as that seen in the is necessary. On top of this, rents need to be cut and capped at genuinely affordable levels and the eviction ban must be renewed linked to ending housing for profit entirely. The resources of the major developers should be brought into public ownership in order that a state construction company be set up to build homes, services and infrastructure at cost price.

Crucially, we need an active struggle on the streets and in our communities, like the inspiring movement that has stood in solidarity with Palestine in the last year and the building of powerful socialist left that rejects the logic of the capitalist market.

selling for the psychological damage he suffered while in prison.

“After almost a generation of being held hostage by my own government, I was suddenly thrown out onto the streets and expected to cope” he said.

Convinced that the freedom of the Birmingham Six was achieved by the people campaigning against their conviction rather than the system righting

its own wrong, Paddy Hill dedicated the rest of his life to fighting injustices of the legal system. He set up Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (Mojo) to campaign on behalf of others falsely convicted and provide psychiatric counselling for those getting out of prison. It’s in this capacity that he stood steadfast with the community of Job-

stown in Tallaght, and three members of the Socialist Party, who were criminally pursued by the Irish State during the battle against the Water Charges on trumped-up charges over a protest in the community in 2014. Speaking in defence of the six defendants who were put on trial, Paddy declared that “justice is for us all, not just the rich and powerful.”

89% of the disabled women surveyed have at one point experienced ‘emotional abuse’, 76% ‘coercive behaviour’, and 76% ‘physical violence / abuse’. The study also reveals that 96% of disabled women believe their disabilities make coping with IPA more difficult.

Capitalism systematically devalues disabled people, reducing them to economic productivity metrics, which leaves them isolated and undersupported. Women with disabilities often face additional barriers to economic independence due to workplace discrimination, limited employment opportunities, and inaccessible environments, making it harder to leave abusive relationships.

Domestic violence services in Ireland remain largely inaccessible to disabled people, with only 2% of services offering communication through text and similarly low percentages addressing accessibility on their platforms.

Only 53% of surveyed women understood the implications of coercive control, a testament to how patriarchal norms obscure the recognition of abuse and limit access to education about autonomy and rights. Moreover, the study notes that legal and state systems fail to protect disabled women adequately –courtroom inaccessibility, for example.

As Dr. Aoife Price emphasises in the report, addressing intimate partner abuse among disabled women requires broad societal change. Public services need to be adequately funded, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity for all. Education programmes, as recommended in the report, must be universal and free, empowering disabled women with knowledge of their rights.

This report uncovers the emotional, physical, and systemic violence endured widely by disabled women, underscoring the oppressive intersections of patriarchy, ableism, and class inequality of capitalism – a system that perpetuates violence against the most vulnerable in society.

Paddy Hill speaking outside the Old Bailey in 1991

Housing crisis will continue under new Government

Bringing corruption and backwardness back – FF and FG’s new coalition

By Jonathan Diebold

AFTERTHE recent elections, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael sought to form a fresh coalition to rule for another five years. The question on all the commentators’ lips was who will be the next mudguard to replace the decimated Green Party? Will it once again be Labour? Or are the Social Democrats ready to sell their soul? Will, against all odds, Sinn Féin be invited into power, having finally swung hard enough to the right to be palatable to these parties? In the end it was none of these groups.

A more wretched nest…

“Profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking.” This is the finding of the 2011 report of the Moriarty Tribunal in relation to Michael Lowry, former FG minister and now an independent TD. Lowry, a 70 year-old veteran of Dáil politics, led the Regional Group in its negotiations to prop up five more years of FF and FG.

Among the Regional Independents, Lowry is relatively unexceptional: the group is a rogues gallery of right-wing populists, pro-government sycophants, and FG castoffs too toxic even for them. Members include people like Verona Murphy, who was ousted from FG after saying that immigrants as young as “three or four years old” could be brainwashed by ISIS. As part of the deal, she was elected Ceann Comhairle

– a position with far-reaching powers to decide the Dáil’s agenda.

Noel Graelish, who once described all African asylum seekers as “spongers,” is another member of the group. For his support, Graelish has been awarded a seat at the cabinet. Gillian O’Toole, a former FG member, received the endorsement of Sharon Keogan, one of the most far-right members of the Oireachtas, who argued that autistic people should be microchipped.

One might wonder how the Government could stoop any lower, but they answered this by inviting the Healy Rae brothers, Michael and Danny, two antichoice millionaire TDs who deny climate change and oppose adoptions by same-sex couples. One of them will have a seat at the cabinet table.

The idea of any of these TDs having any say over government policy is abhorrent. What this will mean for abortion rights, the safety of migrants and LGBTQ+ people, for workers’ rights in the face of housing and cost-of-living crises, for the Occupied Territories Bill, only time will tell. But this is not a departure from the real politics of FG and FF. Many of these TDs left these parties not over political differences, but because they were vocal about how they really felt at the wrong time. The fact that FF and FG are now inviting such people to join a government implies that they will be more willing to lean further to the right than they had dared to in recent years.

Change must come from below Such people are the natural coalition partners for FF and FG. However, some might see this as an argument for left-leaning parties to fight to enter coalition, as the Green Party and the Labour Party before them, have done. But what did the Greens accomplish in government? Ireland is drifting further and further from its climate targets, which were already far too conservative.

At the start of the decade, the state needed to achieve a 5% reduction in emissions every year to hit its 2030

goal. Now, that number has risen to 8% – and continues to rise.

Meanwhile, the Greens backed the Government in ending the ban on nofault evictions, funding the inhumane greyhound racing industry, opening up our ports for the importation of fracked liquified natural gas, and presided over the multiple chronic crises present in the country, from health to housing to cost of living, all of which have only got worse.

This tranche of independents propping up FF and FG only reveals that

the faux-progressive facade that these parties of Irish capitalism tried to put forward at times in recent years is nothing more than that. The change that is needed will not come from influencing these parties in the Dáil. All the important, progressive changes which have been won, from Repeal, to marriage equality, to the rescinding of the water charges, were won on the streets, by ordinary people, forcing the Government to implement these changes. That is what is needed now.

The new opposition – ‘centre left’ parties offer only false hope

By Conor Payne

WITH THE election of the new FF and FG government, we know we can expect four more years of the same policies which have given us a housing crisis, massive wealth inequality, systemic neglect of disabled people and more.

Right-moving SF fails to inspire

This election result was more about the weakness of the opposition than the supposed popularity of FF and FG. Sinn Féin, having won a historic level of support in 2020, squandered this by softening its cough to make itself acceptable to the establishment, neither putting forward radical policies nor organising any people power action against the Government.

Faced with the development of the far right, instead of challenging them head-on they kowtowed to their narratives on migration and trans rights. This failed to win over those impacted by far-right narratives while leaving many others disappointed. Many people were left without any confidence in a real alternative being on offer and this was reflected in the low turnout and in the loss of over 100,000 Sinn Féin votes compared to five years ago.

The so-called ‘centre left’ This also helped to strengthen the so-

image has been tarnished by revelations around Eoin Hayes TD

called ‘centre-left’ opposition parties –Labour and the Social Democrats. With 12 seats each, these parties together are now seen by some as a potential ‘third force’ in Irish politics. Many will have voted for these parties, and in particular the Soc Dems, in the hope of real change and because of their progressive posture on housing, Palestine and against the far right. However, a closer look shows that they are also poised to disappoint. While they will stay out this time around, both parties have repeatedly made clear they are open to coalition

with FF or FG. When Labour did this from 2011-16, it meant a betrayal of working-class people who had put their trust in them and the implementation of brutal austerity, including cuts to vital services and water charges. Since the election, another side to the Soc Dems has also come into clearer view. This was seen particularly in the scandal around Eoin Hayes TD, now suspended from the parliamentary party, and the windfall he received from his shares in his former employer Palantir, which sells artificial intelligence systems to the Israeli military and is profiting di-

rectly from the Gaza genocide.

Also worthy of note were the comments of new Soc Dem TD Sinead Gibney, who when asked about government formation said: “I've left a career in the public sector and before that the private sector... I have no intention of sitting on the opposition benches for my entire political career. We are a group of very committed experts in our different fields who are coming together and trying to offer the electorate something new.”

But we won’t win fundamental change with a party of career-minded

and well-heeled professionals – however ‘expert’ – who seek a more rational management of the current capitalist system and are disconnected from the movements of workers and oppressed people – be it the Palestine solidarity movement, women’s and LGBTQ+ struggles, the workers’ movement etc.

A real left opposition

In this context, the loss of seats for the radical left in the election is an unfortunate setback. But more than ever we need a fighting left opposition both in the Dáil and in the streets. All the crises we faced before the election will intensify, especiallly as Trump’s policies challenge the Irish state’s tax haven model.

A real left opposition means one that rules out coalition with FF and FG, puts forward socialist policies that challenge the power of big business and their capitalist system, and actively seeks to mobilise the power of working-class and oppressed people. All these parties should be called on and pressured to take these steps and be part of such an opposition.

Unfortunately, however, it looks much more likely they will go a different path. But by getting organised on Palestine, the housing crisis, for climate action, against the far right etc. we can also work to develop the genuine left and socialist movement we urgently need.

Soc Dems’ radical

FF and FG are hypocritically covering for Lowry's corruption, downplaying the public anger

Sinn Féin’s shameful betrayal of trans youth Northern Executive bans puberty blockers

By Ollie Bell

IN DECEMBER, the Northern Ireland Executive approved the extension of the UK’s puberty blockers ban for under 18s to the North. This was backed by all four parties in the Executive: Sinn Féin, the DUP, the UUP, and Alliance. The action was taken to prevent Northern Ireland from becoming a ‘back-door’ for trans youth in the UK seeking this life-saving treatment.

What are puberty blockers?

Puberty blockers have quickly become a hotly debated and polarising topic, with anxiety and fear being spread to intentionally confuse and mislead the public about what puberty blockers are.

Puberty blockers are medications that postpone puberty in children. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists are most commonly used. They suppress the production of sex hormones (i.e testosterone and estrogen). They’re usually prescribed to delay precocious puberty in children. The medication is also used in some hormone-sensitive cancers or in fertility treatment for adults. When they are prescribed for young trans people, it’s to allow them more time to solidify their gender identity. For many trans youth, these medications are a lifeline. It means they aren’t

forced to develop secondary sex characteristics like breast development or a deeper voice that might be harder / more expensive to change as an adult.

The Cass Review

Banning puberty blockers was prompted mainly by the Cass Review, commissioned by NHS England to make recommendations on how to improve NHS services for trans youth. The final report, published last April, contained 32 recommendations – none of which includes a complete ban on puberty blockers.

The Cass Review is far from a neutral report, however. It states there is a lack of evidence for puberty blockers and social transition. But this was only after the report threw out 16 studies of over 30,000 trans and non-binary youth. The data from these studies shows access to gender-affirming care is associated with better mental health outcomes, while denial is associated with higher rates of suicidality, depression and self-harm.

The puberty blockers ban is not only just about these medications though. This is just one tactic being used to oppress and force trans people out of existence. Just a month after the Cass Report, the UK government released a draft of new guidelines for Relationship, Sex and Health Education (RSHE). This draft would prohibit

schools from teaching about the “highly contested theory” of gender identity, a recommendation reminiscent of Section 28 – the homophobic law introduced by Thatcher and repealed in 2003.

Similar restrictions are being put on schools in the South by the Department of Education, which says schools have no general duty to allow a young

trans person to transition socially and should take a ‘cautious approach’. Both draft guidelines cite the Cass Review to justify these guidelines.

Backstabbed

While it’s not surprising to see the right-wing, conservative parties support these policies, it was a shock to some that Sinn Féin’s would support it.

Shining a light on a sordid past: Journalists win case against the PSNI

By Sean Burns

JOURNALISTS, BARRY McCaffrey

and Trevor Birney featured in the No Stone Unturned documentary have won their case against the PSNI for the harassment, intimidation, arrest and spying they suffered for refusing to reveal their sources. Those journalists shone a light on the past crimes of the British State and sought to give truth to the victims' families.

Collusion and cover-up

They were first arrested in 2018 over an alleged theft of a police watchdog document that appeared in their documentary, which explored the notorious Loyalist Massacre in Loughinisland in 1994. On this night, the UVF entered the Heights Bar in Loughinisland with assault rifles; the pub was crowded with people watching the Republic of Ireland play against Italy, and the men fired more than 60 bullets into the room. Six men were killed. There were serious issues with the investigation, including strong evidence suggesting links between the RUC and the Loyalist paramilitaries. This was a fact the British State and the PSNI sought to cover up. One of the journalists, Barry McCaffrey, summed up this experience:

“…it is deeply disturbing that we have had to drag police kicking and screaming through endless court hearings, and at every turn, the police

have attempted to block and frustrate any early resolution to this case. Even at the 11th hour last night, the police were still trying to gag us from talking publicly about the facts of our case.”

Truth and justice denied

Despite this ruling, the families of the victims are unlikely to get the truth that they desire. The actions of the State are adding to the hurt and trauma of the families of the victims as their desire for truth is obstructed at every turn. It is in the power of the Chief Constable to release the documents and information

pertaining to the massacre tomorrow, if he so desires. But he will not.

This is no surprise. Contrary to the narrative presented by the British State of being a neutral arbiter during the Troubles, security forces, the British Army and the RUC, were in fact actively involved in the conflict and played a sordid role within it to defend the interests of the British ruling class. This can be seen in the direct and indirect (in the form of collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries) atrocities that they carried out and the general repression they enforced.

But Sinn Féin has been on a rightwing turn in recent years – pandering to anti-immigration notions being whipped up by the far right in Ireland. Now it’s anti-trans notions. Clearly, parties like Sinn Fein provide nothing but lip service towards the LGBTQI+ community – waving pride flags with one hand while signing away our rights with the other.

Despite being backstabbed by Sinn Féin, the trans community is not backing down. Outside the office of Wes Streetings, young activists from Trans Kids Deserve Better set up an encampment in protest after the health secretary announced a permanent ban on puberty blockers. In the North, a protest was called by Trans Pride NI which ROSA and the Socialist Party supported.

Trans liberation will never come from the liberal sections of the establishment, nor parties like Sinn Féin who will put electoral gains over trans lives. It will come from a militant, vibrant trans movement – one that recognises the systemic role capitalism plays in whipping up transphobia and stands in solidarity with all oppressed people. We cannot rely on liberal parties to hand us informed, consent-based trans healthcare. It is only through a radical socialist movement with bodily autonomy at its core that we will win full healthcare rights for trans people.

They have no interest in bringing out this truth. This approach was summed up by former Secretary of State Theresa Villiers when she claimed, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the many examples of collusion between the State and Loyalist paramilitaries represent a “pernicious counter-narrative” and a “deliberate distortion of the truth.”

Avoiding saccountability

Meanwhile, Starmer has reneged on his promise to repeal the Legacy Bill fully, a bill that gives amnesty for all

those involved in atrocities during the Troubles. The previous Tory government brought this in to avoid accountability and scrutiny of the British State’s crimes. Starmer’s intention to “reform” represents him dragging his feet when it comes to shining a light on the truth. Any real accounting would expose the horrific role of state forces in murder and collusion. To do so would expose the deeply undemocratic and oppressive nature of the British ruling class.

The past is still used as a weapon today by all forces that were part of the conflict, namely the British and the sectarian parties. The pain, sorrow and deeply felt anger are used cynically to further their own agendas. What is necessary instead is to engage in the most open and honest process possible. It is clear that none of the actors of the Troubles have the capacity to be genuine in leading such an initiative, but there is one force that does: working-class people. People whose lives today are still impacted by sectarian division.

Such a process could look like a wide-ranging enquiry into the conflict but independent of the State or sectarian parties. This would have to be predicated on the full opening of the books, both state secrets and the secrets of paramilitaries. Such a process would help, and be part of creating a real peace process – one that actually seeks to create “reconciliation, tolerance, and mutual trust”.

Protest outside Sinn Féin HQ in Dublin

Barry McCaffrey (left) and Trevor Birney (Middle) took on the British State and won their battle for freedom of the press

TWO RELATED stories featured in the news in the weeks before arch-climate change denier Donald Trump was sworn in to serve his second term as US President, writes DONAL DEVLIN. One was that in 2024, the global average temperature crossed a crucial barrier, exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a level agreed by the world’s governments in 2015 as crucial to remain under to prevent irreversible, runaway climate change.

THE OTHER was the terrifying reality of this global warming being brought to bear as Los Angeles was devastated by an inferno of unrelenting wildfires, resulting in tens of thousands of homes being destroyed, 26 (at the time of writing) dead, and countless livelihoods ruined.

“Drill, Baby, Drill”

One of Trump’s first acts will likely be to withdraw the United States, the world’s second-largest polluter after China, from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement for the second time. Unlike other governments, his administration will not even make a nominal commitment to tackle climate change; on the contrary, he boasts of his desire to wage war on nature – his characteristically crude campaign slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill” exemplified this. His Presidency will give oil and gas companies free rein to engage in unlimited extraction and fracking regardless of its deeply destructive cost.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy is fracking evangelist Christ Wright, CEO of oil and gas company Liberty Energy. In his eagerness to prove its safety, Wright drank fracked fluid in a video posted on Facebook in 2019. Like most Trumpians, he seems blissfully ignorant of the science of climate change. Liquified natural gas from fracking contains 85% methane, which is 80 times more potent than CO2.

Trump’s billionaire appointees

More generally, Trump’s cabinet is filled with billionaires and Wall Street executives who espouse toxic racist, transphobic and misogynistic ideas and conspiracy theories. These include his pick for Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr, who has spread the disgusting ableist myth that vaccines cause autism.

His ambassador to the UN will be Elise Stefanic, who has echoed the racist ‘great replacement theory’, including in her campaign ads for Congress. The new ambassador to the Israeli State is Mike Huckabee, who has spouted the Zionist trope that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” – an argument used to justify 76 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing, occupation and genocide.

Trump is also threatening to impose sanctions, such as travel bans to the US, on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in retaliation for its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister for Defence, Yoav Gallant.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head the new, euphemistically titled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency likely to be filled with Silicon Valley bosses. The agency's purpose is to devise a plan to cut federal government spending, with a target of $2 trillion – fulfilling the neoliberal fan-

tasy of reining in “big government” spending. They have set their sights on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Fundamental political barriers exist to such a programme. For example, many Trump supporters have expressed sympathy for Luigi Mangione's actions and hatred of private health companies, which indicates opposition to the gutting of the state’s role in providing health services. Moreover, in an era of inter-imperialist rivalry, notably with China, US capitalism needs a ‘big government’ to continue investing in crucially strategic industries such as the semiconductor sector.

Far right emboldened

Like in 2016, the re-election of Trump will further embolden the far right globally, given the position he occupies and the racist rhetoric and policies he espouses. He is committed to ending birthright citizenship (that you have a right to US citizenship if you are born there) – criminalising the children of millions of so-called ‘illegal’ immigrants, and vows to deport 11 million of them. Criminalising migrants is not only blatantly racist, it is utterly hypocritical. The fear of deportation and arrest means they can more easily be used as a source of super-exploited labour, which is crucial for US capitalism and undoubtedly part of the calculation. Trump’s election has been met with a real sense of trepidation on the part of trans and queer people in the US and beyond. This comes against the backdrop of a vicious onslaught on their rights and attempts to whip up LGBTQphobia in what are misleadingly called “culture wars”. Trump has vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” and withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide gender transition treatment to minors. This comes as 26 Republicanled state legislatures have already enacted such legislation.

Capitalist rule exposed

With his victory, Trump is now being embraced by different sections of the US ruling class, including those who would have previously supported Democrats. Time magazine proclaimed him “Man of the Year.” After being banned from Meta in 2020, one of his top supporters, Dana White, CEO of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), has been brought onto its board. Mark Zuckerberg promised to abolish ‘fact-checking’ on Facebook and Instagram, paving the way for them to be awash with racist and backward conspiracy theories. Amazon, Uber, Google and Microsoft, and Apple CEO Tim Cook have all donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

In a period of crisis and systemic decay, capitalist leaders are more and more dispensing with a thin progressive or “woke” veneer that it was forced to put on in the context of the anti-oppression revolts of the last decade. Trump is their new representative in the White House, and he is the living embodiment of everything rotten about this system.

His election is a wake-up call. In the face of rising racism, LGBTQphobia, genocide, climate catastrophe and massive wealth inequality, the need to build a multi-gendered, multi-racial and international movement for socialism is more urgent than ever.n

THE RETURN OF TRUMP AND THE FASCISSTIC BILLIONAIRE REGGIME

Musk leads the MAGAfication

By James McCabe

THEYEAR began with numerous grim reminders that the normalisation of the far right is accelerating.

On 2 January, Elon Musk, 59% of space satellites, called for the King of England to dissolve the Westminster parliament. The same day, when many of us were either working or seeking some respite from the chaos of 2024, Musk was Tweeting “Free Tommy Robinson”. Imagine if someone had told you in the 2010s that by 2025 the world’s richest man would be publicly extolling the virtues of English Defence League, fascist thug Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), and calling for his immediate release from prison.

Corporate welfare safety net

You could be forgiven for harking back to a simpler time when Musk was just another nepo baby who generally shunned the limelight, despite the odd cameo in nerdy sitcoms and Hollywood films. He made an appearance in Iron Man 2 in 2010, for example. Back then, he was focused on presenting an inoffensive, clean-cut image to help him attain lucrative contracts from the US federal government to fund his prestige projects. He now has at least 100 different contracts with the federal government, including tens of billions of dollars of state funding for his SpaceX rocket company. The financial security he experienced as the son of an emerald mine owner in his youth in apartheid South Africa has been superseded by the security the US government provides to his profiteering today. And behind the

glamour of electric Cybertrucks and Mars exploration, he’s a racist, misogynistic, narrow-minded oligarch.

A master of disinformation

In July 2020, when many Twitter users called out the role of the US in an attempted coup in Bolivia, (home to some of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, used in electric car batteries), Musk’s response was: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” When racist riots erupted in Southport last year, Musk Tweeted that civil war in Britain was now “inevitable”. His propensity for alarmism was also on display at a hardright festival in Rome where he claimed that the world’s population will be onetenth of its size within three generations. In fact, the population is due to rise to ten billion by the year 2058.

Musk was Donald Trump’s biggest donor in 20

P STIC GIME

n of Corporate America

However, he reached a new low with his fawning interview with German farright AfD leader, Alice Weidel. He has repeatedly advocated that Germans vote for the AfD, stating: “Only the AfD can save Germany, end of story!”. The two agreed on all major political issues: tax cuts for the rich, deportation of migrants, support for the Israeli state’s genocide in Gaza and so on.

Musk also agreed with Weidel’s outrageous claim that: “Hitler was a communist and he considered himself as a socialist.” The Nazis were rabidly and violently anti-communist in both actions and words. And like the far right today, they were funded by big business.

US car manufacturer Henry Ford admired Hitler because his regime safeguarded and boosted the profits of German capitalism. The fortunes of

many German billionaire families today can be traced back to the Nazis – some of whom have donated to the AfD.

Tesla's – anti-union shop

For his part, Musk spent $277 million bankrolling Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 elections – a fraction of his obscene fortune of $437 billion. As a reward for his support, Trump has allowed him to sit in on meetings with many world leaders and he’s been living in a cottage in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence for the past couple of months.

Like Trump, he’s anti-worker and anti-union to his core. In conversation with Musk before the election, Trump praised him for firing workers who threaten strike action: “You’re the greatest cutter… I won’t mention the name

The Irish State is no friend of Palestinians

NO SOONER had the new government been agreed than it signalled its willingness to either ditch or water down the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB). This starkly contrasts with the attitudes of most ordinary people; a recent poll showed that 67% favour its enactment. This bill would ban the importation of goods and services from Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Weaponising anti-Semitism

state supporting the Israeli regime is the Central Bank, which has been buying up the Israeli State’s “war bonds” as it seeks to shore up money to fund its murder machine.

Exporting weapons

of the company, but they go on strike and you say: ‘that’s OK. You’re all gone.’” Musk fired 75% of Twitter’s staff after his takeover, many after searching through the messages of workers to see who badmouthed him. Tesla is a nonunionised workplace and workers there are even banned from wearing union tshirts. Trump and Musk are aspiring to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Anything close to this level of cuts would require the loss of hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs. These billionaires could be in for a surprise when public sector workers resist through strike action.

Corporate America goes MAGA

It’s scary to see how several white South African far-right billionaires like Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sachs have so much influence in the White House now. But what’s more worrying is that they are no longer fringe figures. The CEOs of Google, Amazon, Meta and Apple have each donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

We cannot accept that a few billionaires can be allowed to own and control major social media platforms, tech companies and the media, dictating what we see via their algorithms and trying to influence what we think. These resources must be seized from their hands, taken into public ownership, democratically controlled, and used for the benefit of all.

More generally, the rule of their oppressive system must end. Never have the words of James Connolly rang more true: “The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go.”

While the Government is blocking the passage of the OTB, they have no qualms in introducing legislation that amounts to a disgusting smear of the Palestine solidarity movement. Their Programme for Government has committed to adopt the definition of antiSemitism advocated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) which essentially equates criticism of the Israeli State with hatred of Jewish people. It argues that to think or say “that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” is anti-Semitic. However, it is a self-evident fact that the Israeli State is inherently racist; it is a state built on the ideology of Jewish supremacy and the systemic oppression of the Palestinian people and the destruction of their historic homeland. In the face of the growing opposition to Palestinian oppression globally, the IHRA definition is being adopted by Western governments to weaponise the serious question of anti-Semitism and silence criticisms of the Israeli apartheid regime.

Defenders of Palestinian people?

FF and FG would like to give the impression that they are defenders of the rights of Palestinian people. Due to the widespread solidarity with Palestine amongst Irish working-class people, they are forced to take a position that is something of an outlier relative to other EU states. For example, they called for a ceasefire in Gaza early on in Israel’s genocidal war and, more recently, have signed up to South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ. However, this opposition has been superficial at best. Their decision to recognise the State of Palestine in May of last year comes 36 years after it was declared at the height of the First Intifada in 1988. They have allowed tons of weaponry destined for the Israeli apartheid state to go through Shannon Airport and Irish airspace. Another section of the Irish

Since the genocide began until the end of 2024, the Irish government granted 29 export licences for dualuse goods (goods that can be used for civilian and military use) to Israel worth €95 million. This is at a time when the Israeli civilian economy has plummeted, and military expenditure has shot up; it’s therefore not hard to surmise that the majority of these goods have been used to destroy Palestinian lives.

The Irish state also has a record of purchasing weaponry from the Israeli State and their merchants of death. The publication of recent state papers from the early 1990s found that Bertie Ahern, then Minister for Finance in a FF-led government overruled objections to purchasing such weapons in May 1992.

Many FF and FG TDs are members of the Oireachtas Friends of Israel group. The youth wing of the latter was quick to announce in October 2023 that they “stood with Israel” when it was clear that the Israeli regime was intent on carrying out a genocide against Gaza.

Subservient to imperialism

These actions should come as no surprise – these are the same parties that have facilitated US imperialism to wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by allowing hundreds of thousands of troops to go through Shannon.

All of this reflects that the Irish capitalist establishment is fundamentally beholden to US and EU imperialism, the shameless backers of the Israeli State and its multiple crimes against the Palestinian people. These people are not allies of the struggle for the liberation of Palestine; the interests of their class dictate otherwise. It is only the mass movement of ordinary people from below who have stood steadfastly against this genocide that can play this role. In our workplaces, communities and colleges we need to do all we can to strike blows against the Israeli State. This means strike action, boycotts and protests to ensure that the US military is kicked out of Shannon, the Occupied Territories Bill is implemented and all companies complicit in the genocide are targeted.

Ceasefire in Gaza:

The struggle against Genocide isn’t over

By Darragh O’Dwyer & Serge Jordan

ASWE go to print, a ceasefire in Gaza has come into being. After 15 months of unimaginably horrific bombardment carried out by the Israeli State, Gaza’s population may be afforded a temporary reprieve from the constant fear of death and destruction and space to mourn. Widely shared videos of jubilant celebrations by Palestinians in Gaza drove home the sense of relief at the prospect of reprieve from the 15-month genocide.

Genocide Joe

The Israeli regime’s murky record on “honouring” ceasefires — including most recently in Lebanon, where the Israeli regime has repeatedly violated the ceasefire agreement concluded in November last year, notably by launching near-daily airstrikes since the deal took effect — should serve as a bitter warning to the international Gaza solidarity movement not to demobilise but redouble our efforts in deepening and extending the struggle in our communities, workplaces and universities.

Despite attempts to claim credit for the ceasefire, Biden will not shed his rightful title of ‘genocide Joe.’ His administration did not ‘fail’ to achieve a ceasefire earlier, nor did it work “tirelessly” to achieve one; it deliberately chose not to leverage its influence, in-

stead actively enabling Netanyahu’s genocidal cabinet to prolong the slaughter for months on end by generously supplying the means to carry it out.

Normalisation agreements

Clearly, Trump’s urgency to secure a ceasefire is not rooted in altruistic mo-

tives. He is desperate for strategic reasons to get the normalisation agreements between the Israeli State and the Gulf States off the ground in order to isolate Iran. The ongoing genocide was clearly a barrier to this. Whereas in his first presidency, these regimes ditched the demand for a Palestinian state in Israeli normalisation agreements, the

fury of revulsion that has spread amongst the Arab masses makes the same position politically impossible.

In Morocco, the resistance against the normalisation agreement has also grown markedly, including among the Amazighs. This is a new political reality that Trump 2.0 has to grapple with in order to get Israel-Saudi normalisation over the line and an important backdrop to the ceasefire. As 39-yearold Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman explained to Blinken:

“Seventy percent of my population is younger than me. For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.”

These comments highlight the indelible imprint that the Gaza genocide has left in the consciousness of workers, youth and the oppressed masses, not just in the Middle East and North Africa, but across the globe. The ongoing international Gaza solidarity movement has drawn hundreds of millions into the streets against occupation and imperialism, exposing the complicity of the Western ruling classes in the genocide and the role of Arab capitalist regimes in maintaining the subjugation of the Palestinians.

For Palestinian liberation It is now correctly and abundantly clear to the Palestinian people themselves and for many of the millions who have stood in solidarity with them that their freedom will never be achieved as long as the Israeli State remains in existence. It must be overthrown and smashed. But this question cannot be left there. This state is part and parcel of the system of imperialism and capitalism that has created a prisonhouse of violence, exploitation and oppression for the peoples of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. Their rule must be replaced by revolutionary governments of the working class and poor that seize the wealth and resources from the super-rich elites, big business and multinationals who hoard and abuse it.

These resources could notably be used to rebuild Gaza, restore its infrastructure and provide for the basic needs of its people. A democratic socialist transformation of this region would mean the creation of a society with justice and equality for all and oppression, exploitation and poverty for none. It would afford both Palestinians and Israeli Jews the right to national self-determination, allow Palestinians the right of return to their historic homeland and for both peoples to live in peace and security.

“Shame must change sides” – The vital case of Gisèle Pelicot

By Martina Stafford

CW for distressing details of abuse

INA stunning decision, Gisèle Pelicot faced down the rape culture that demands survivors of abuse carry the burden of shame and secrecy. She refused a closed trial, demanding that the public join her in confronting the truth about her abuse by more than 70 men, one of whom she shared a life with.

Gisèle was drugged and raped repeatedly by her long-time husband over the course of almost a decade. He invited dozens of men into their home and filmed them as they also rape her unconscious body, causing her to contract several sexually transmitted infections. She fought for the videos of her abuse to be shown in court, forcing the world to reckon with the truth of men’s violence against women – including those they claim to love.

‘Normal’ men

The men came from all walks of life –lorry drivers, soldiers, firefighters, security guards, farm workers, a supermarket worker, a journalist and unemployed. The youngest suspect was 22 when he entered Ms Pelicot’s bedroom, while the oldest was in his early 70s. Many had children and were in relationships. Most lived within a 50km radius of the Pelicots’ village of Mazan.

Unlike many victims of abuse, Gisèle had ‘hard evidence’ that demonstrated clearly that she was raped according to the legal definition of rape in France. She was so heavily sedated she could be heard snoring in the videos. This did not prevent the legal defence for many of the perpetrators from using misogynistic tropes to try to claim that it wasn’t rape.

Bravely waiving anonymity

There are many valid reasons why sur -

vivors of abuse need anonymity and do not want evidence or details of their case to be shared with the public. Abusers are often family members. Survivors often have children to consider. Abusers can be powerful people capable of waging a social media / media campaigns of hate against their victim. Stigma can be mobilised at any moment to cause further destruction to the lives of survivors forcing them to be silent and ashamed in a society that routinely subjugates survivors and protects abusers.

In fact, victims of abuse are essentially shunned from society in a myriad of ways. The toll can lead to physical and mental health issues that make life even more difficult.

Deeply misogynistic culture Gisèle did ‘everything right’. She settled down in a monogamous marriage with a ‘good man’ who she described as “perfect”. And yet, it was this man who brutalised her in the most inhumane way. How can we understand this?

How can we understand that it was possible to find so many men in such a small catchment area who would do this?

We would like to believe that there is somewhere in this unjust, cruel, profit-driven system that is safe, warm and loving. A place we usually call ‘home’. Unfortunately, the culture that emanates from the economic and political structures of capitalism seeps into even our most intimate personal settings and relationships. The most ordinary of men are not immune from the toxic impact of misogyny and rape culture. And yet we need ordinary men to stand against misogyny and violence against women if we are to collectively struggle for a society free from exploitation and oppression.

A heroic symbol

Gisèle Pelicot (72) has become a symbol of courage and power, admired by survivors the world over. It is essential that ordinary men also see that they have a vital role to play in combating gender-based violence on an individual level, in close relationships, in movements, in left political organising and in workplaces.

In the fight for a better life for all, the hate, violence, misogyny, exclusion, racism, transphobia that is required for this system to rule and profit will chain us to our own defeat if we do not reject it all.

In the wake of the ceasefire the full scale of the genocide has become more apparent

Gisèle Pelicot's courageous stand has inspired survivors of abuse internationally

A new round of attacks on public sector workers

By Ruth Coppinger TD

ANEW pay deal for public sector workers is not due until 2027, but already the propaganda is being ramped up in the media about it “representing a key financial risk”. A report by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) identified public sector pay as one of six ‘risks’ facing the next government.

The report says that between 2008 and 2023 public sector employment increased by 22%, which “reflects the growing demand for public services, but it also adds to the fiscal burden.”

Underfunded services

What this leaves out is that these employment increases were making up for the cuts during the austerity years and also that the population in Ireland has risen dramatically in that time, surpassing 5 million. In the last ten years alone, Ireland’s population rose by 14.4%.

The gross €1 billion increase from 2026 onwards in meeting the obligations under the current pay deal is less than 1% of overall state expenditure (€104 Billion) and in reality is considerably lower, as about 50% comes back to the state in PAYE, USC and pension levies.

The only point in these alarmist claims is to dampen down legitimate demands that public service unions should make for real cost of living increases in the next pay round.

The current deal runs from January 2024 to June 2026, and is an average increase of 9.25% over 2.5 years, not even making up for pay lost to inflation.

Chronic shortages

Far from having too many public sector workers, there are clearly too few. A massive recruitment and retention crisis haunts the public service, as workers leave the sector or emigrate as they cannot afford to live here or to withstand the stress of working in many areas of the underfunded public sector. When economists and journalists talk about public sector pay as a ‘risk’, they are talking about underpaying nurses, teachers, therapists, emergency services, council workers who grit the roads etc.

The new school term has only begun and already the chronic teacher shortage is back in the headlines. Health unions had to protest about the recruitment embargo endangering patient’s lives. Children languish on disability waiting lists of up to seven and a half years in Dublin West because therapists just cannot be found to assess and treat them. The care system is breaking

at the seams with the most vulnerable not being looked after due to vacancies – the list goes on and on.

We need investment and a massive enhancement of public services – free health, education and social services that are able to cater for the needs of all.

A wealthy country

What establishment economists never talk about is the massive wealth in society that is untapped and untaxed. Ireland is a very wealthy country. According to the Central Bank the net worth of Irish households is €1.1 trillion, an increase of 33 billion in just the last quarter of 2023. The issue of course is that this wealth is concentrated in so few hands. 10% of the population own 54% of wealth; 1% own 35.4%. Indeed, just 11 billionaires in Ireland have a combined €50 billion!

As well as significant progressive wealth taxes, corporations must pay if

Twe want public services. Corporate profits in the last 10 years rose by 294% – and that included a pandemic! The benefits to employment of these multinationals is always celebrated by the Irish establishment, but the cost to Irish society of not making them pay more tax is not weighed up. As a tax haven, Ireland has myriad loopholes but even the legendary low corporation tax rate is not actually levied. The effective rate has been 6-7%.

If the OECD minimum of 15% was levied, this could raise €60 billion. If corporation tax was raised to 20% (the level paid by many lower paid workers) a massive €80 billion could be raised. Trade unions must make this a key argument and not settle for crumbs that will only maintain the labour shortages and cuts to services. Crucially, this must be willing to take the necessary industrial action to ensure we win pay raises in the context of an ongoing cost of living crisis.

New report exposes state racism against Travellers

By Michael Shiel

THE IRISH Penal Reform Trust recently released a study exposing the grotesque discrimination and systematic racism in the Irish prison system faced by those from the Travelling Community. It reports that Travellers make up 8% of all prisoners, an increase from 6% in 2016, as well as up to 21% of children in some facilities.

To put this in context, Travellers only make up just 0.6% of the entire population of the state according to the 2022 census. Educational disadvantage, homelessness and unemployment are among the factors for these alarming figures. Crucially, it speaks to the inbuilt racism and oppression suffered by Travellers on the part of the Irish State.

Racist deprivation

As of 2016, the average prisoner is 23 times more likely to come from a severely deprived area, and 60% of all prisoners were not in employment or education at the time of arrest. These statistics expose the extreme inequality at the core of the prison system, and Travellers experience its worst aspects. They receive longer prison sentences than those in the settled community and are less likely to be given bail or conditional release.

They also experience racist mistreatment at every level of the justice system: in an internal survey of the Gardaí, no frontline officers reported positive opinions towards Travellers. A shocking 75% of Gardaí reported poor opinions of Roma people as well, who experience additional difficulties in prison due to language barriers not being addressed and even more negative stereotypes among prison staff.

State racism

By Conor Burke

HE ANNOUNCEMENT just before Christmas that Galway’s art house cinema, Pálás, is due to close comes as a significant blow to the city’s arts community. The company that runs Pálás and operates the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin has highlighted financial difficulties as the key reason for its decision to pull out. They also pointed to the oversaturation of commercial cinemas in Galway as another key factor.

This highlights a key flaw in the operation of such cultural institutions: Pálás should never have been run on a competitive, profit-driven model. It was built on the back of significant public funding and should always have been run as a publicly-owned utility.

Commercialisation

Pálás is different from other commercial cinemas. It was always supposed to be more orientated towards Galway’s film community as a hub for local film producers and festivals such as the annual Film Fleadh. It was also supposed

to highlight smaller, independent art houses’ films. Running it based on the market was always likely to lead to difficulties, and it highlights the necessity of cultural institutions being publicly

run and supported by state funding. In keeping with its original purpose, other potential uses for the building could be to use it partially as an education centre linked to the local uni-

versities and PLC courses.

Galway has a reputation for being a creative hub within Ireland. This is largely down to the various cultural institutions and artists that make it possible. However, beneath this facade and the extremely hard work of local artists, performers, filmmakers, musicians, etc., there is a clinical lack of infrastructural investment and funding to support this community. While large-scale innercity renewal projects are underway, it always feels as if consideration for the arts is an afterthought at best.

State must step in

For example, the Black Box Theatre (which also houses many artist studios) is set to be demolished to make way for much-needed housing. Still, the Council or the property developers have not committed to including replacement arts infrastructure in the new development. Now, with the potential closure of Pálás, this highlights the political establishment’s lack of vision and concern for the arts, whose primary motivation is always keeping private property developers in profit.

Like many other ethnic and national minority groups, Travellers reported widespread distrust of the justice system due to these experiences. The Irish state has systematically criminalised Travellers since its creation, from Garda crackdowns using anti-nomadic policies to the justice system of today.

Ending injustice in this racist justice system will need deeper change. We need a democratic policing body that is made up of elected boards, representatives from Traveller communities, other minority groups, and working-class communities in general, not the racist and corrupt Garda force we have at the moment.

We need an overhauled judicial system that is democratic and participatory, not elitist and discriminatory, where judges with racist attitudes to account can be held to account and removed. But crucially, this means ending the dehumanising racism that Travellers and other oppressed communities face – such as the absence of decent, culturally appropriate accommodation.

Save Pálás Cinema – culture and arts before profit

300 people protested outside Galway City Council against the closure of Pálás cinema

We need a union movement is prepared to fight and strike for pay rises

Review: The Substance

directed

by Coralie Fargeat

Reviewed by Steph Lacey

THE SUBSTANCE is a satirical, body-horror film that centres around the character of Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading Hollywood star who goes to extreme lengths to try to reclaim her youthful looks and career, by taking a new, secret wonder drug called ‘the substance.’

The film aims to put a spotlight on the objectification and ridiculous beauty standards faced by women in Hollywood. The casting of Demi Moore in the lead role works so well because she is an incredibly beautiful woman who is only guilty of aging. It’s less about losing your ‘looks’ but losing your youth, which are so entwined, especially for women, in this patriarchal culture of capitalist society.

French director Carolie Fargeat has cited David Lynch, John Carpenter and David Cronenberg as her influences, which is very obvious from this movie with nods to The Elephant Man, The Thing, The Fly, Videodrome and Existenz throughout. There are also references to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Brian de Palma’s Carrie, as well as ‘The Nightmare and Dawn’ theme from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. All of which makes it a very fun film for movie-buffs, but with an original, female-driven perspective.

The film can also be compared to All About Eve – in which Bette Davis plays an aging Broadway star who is being ‘replaced’ by a younger actress.

Twelve years after All About Eve, Bette Davis would take out an advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter and other trade papers looking for work. It read: “Mother of three – 10, 11 and 15. Divorcee. American. Thirty years’ experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumour would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway.) References on request.”

While the subject of the movie dates back to the early days of Hollywood, it is still very topical. In 2000, for example, the best actress Oscar winners were Angelina Jolie, 24 at the time, and Hilary Swank, 25. The best actor Oscar winners were Kevin Spacey, 40, and Michael Caine, 67. In 2013, Jennifer Lawrence, 22, and Anne Hathaway, 30, were the best actress Oscar winners, and Daniel Day-Lewis, 55, and Christoph Waltz, 56, took home the best actor Oscars. Last year, Cillian Murphy, 48, and Robert Downey Jr, 49, took home the best actor Oscars, while the best actress Oscars went to Emma Stone, 36, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph 38. While there are exceptions, with Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis winning the Oscars in

Marxist journal of the Socialist Party: Socialist Alternative no.18

Includes articles on:

l 25 years on: Has the Good Friday Agreement delivered?

l Sinn Féin, PBP & the question of a left government

l Anti-oppression struggles & the revolutionary process

l What does ChatGPT mean for workers?

l 75 years since the founding of the NHS

l Germany 1923: Lessons of the lost revolution

l Reviews of The Myth of Normal, Close To Home and The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality

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Socialism 101 series #22

Can capitalism ever deliver gender equality? (Part 1)

By Laura Fitzgerald

2023, both older than the actor winners, it is still rare to see older female actors consistently getting great roles, unlike their male counterparts.

The film is a reflection of Hollywood and society’s obsession and fetishisation of female youth, and the lengths people will go to to reclaim it. Both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley give powerhouse performances. Moore’s resentment of her younger, ‘prettier’ self, and Qualley’s hatred and anger at her older self makes for an uncomfortable and uneasy watch as it can be very relatable for a lot of people.

While the film does go to the extreme of body horror and grotesque imagery, every shot and scene feels very intentional and not just done for shock value. Carolie Fargeat is a staunch advocate for practical effects and sought to minimize the use of VFX throughout the film, which, although over the top, gives it a very real quality.

It is a film that starts, (or continues), a very important conversation about the impossible beauty standards forced on women, and the demonisation women face when they decide to either ‘grow old naturally’ or seek out ways to cover up aging. We, as a society, need to dismantle what is typically seen as beautiful, and really examine who sets these beauty standards and why, when they are very much steeped in ageism and racism.

ACCORDING TO the 2024 Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum, it will take 134 years to reach gender equality. This preposterous projection is an indictment of capitalism. The sunny optimism of the World Economic Forum, that it will take one and a third centuries to get gender equality neglects to take into account that capitalism in fact has us hurtling backwards.

In Sudan, women have taken their own lives en masse to avoid rape by paramilitaries. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are nothing if not creative in the twisted ways in which they foster gender apartheid. Not content with denying girls an education, women have been banned from studying in medical institutions with disastrous consequences for their access to any healthcare. Women have also been banned from singing, and even from hearing other women’s voices.

Across Europe the far right is rising, scoring major electoral conquests in Austria and Germany most recently. In the US, five of Trump’s (who infamously boasted about being a sexual assaulter and who 27 women have shared their own testimony against) cabinet picks are men accused of sexual harassment – no doubt a conscious attempt at trolling feminists in the men he chooses to elevate.

The far right are ideologically wedded to patriarchy, including abortion bans and a view of women’s role as ‘in the home’. The far-right’s selective outcry on violence against women is interwoven with its racist patriarchal worldview – macho, far-right tough guys have to violently ‘protect’ helpless white women from the Black, brown and migrant men that they demonise. Meanwhile many of the far right’s foot soldiers' heroes, from Trump, to Conor McGregor, to Andrew Tate, run the gamut of rapists, serial harassers, abusers of minors, and sex traffickers.

The 2010s saw a global feminist and queer wave that encompassed Repeal, MeToo, the feminist strike, and Ni Una Menos. Five years in, the 2020s have given rise to a significant push back against this feminist and queer wave of struggle.

The degree to which patriarchal gender norms are infused in the farright is striking – any cursory look at

the images on the National Party’s website will give you an insight into the same as it’s chock-full of gymsculpted young men, almost exclusively.

The far-right rise is coming straight out of today’s capitalism. It’s unfortunately no fringe aberration, it is capitalism today. It’s an era in which billionaire bigot, Elon Musk, richest man in the world and geeky, edgelord tech-bro, can own a social media giant and be in Trump’s cabinet while he spouts his clueless but terrifying ramblings about Andrew Tate’s ‘bid’ to become British Prime Minister. Meanwhile billionaires who previously preferred to project a more enlightened veneer are scrambling around to appease Trump and the far-right -- as per Zuckerberg’s ditching of factchecking by Meta and coronation of Trump ally, Dana White.

It’s the ramping up of transphobia everywhere that gives perhaps the biggest insight into the degree to which the system is pushing back against the freedoms that feminist and queer struggles promise. Trans people's very existence throws the rigid gender binary into question, and for this they are so cruelly targeted.

This rigid gender binary that is innately patriarchal, serves capitalism deeply. From the $10.8 trillion unpaid care work that women do annually – labour that regenerates the workforce for capitalism, enabling the worker exploitation that makes capitalism’s profits; to the macho ideology that is imbued in so much of the propaganda for capitalism and is widespread in imperialist armies and occupying forces, alongside racism; to the division created amongst the working class of the world via sexism and queerphobia – capitalism fosters and relies upon gender oppression. The whole trajectory of this vile system – the capitalist hellscape that’s defined by genocide and ecocide, that perpetuates a pervasive culture in which abusers are rewarded while survivors are denigrated, a system that boasts record homelessness side by side with record wealth of a miniscule billionaire class – indicates without question that capitalism can never achieve gender equality. We need a feminism that’s infused with anticapitalism and socialism and urgency.

United States: Luigi Mangione case exposes deep class divide

By Harper Cleves

THINK PIECES, memes,

and strangers offering fake alibis: these are just some of the mediums in which both adoration and fury were levelled at Luigi Mangione, the 26year-old who has been charged with murder and terrorism for the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Mangione’s actions were motivated by a deeply personal anguish at having been failed by a for-profit healthcare system. Individually targeting CEOs isn’t a pathway to structural change. In fact, it is counterproductive. Not only will new money-grubbing capitalists line up to take their place, but the state has become more advanced at tracking and monitoring us all and increasing repression generally. However, the pain behind such an act is eminently understandable, as is the fact that it has struck a sympathetic chord with millions who have similarly suffered under the cruel private healthcare system.

“You show me a capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker”

This quote from Malcolm X seems especially apt when considering the profiteering US healthcare system. Insurance companies make billions annually by denying coverage to people in need of often life-saving health care.

An estimated 100 million US Americans are burdened with healthcare debt. It is estimated that insurers deny between 10% to 20% of healthcare claims, and a survey found that one in five US Americans say they have been denied coverage in their lifetime.

By contrast, in 2023, United Healthcare made $31.6 billion in profits. Brian Thompson, as CEO, made $10.2 million annually, including salary, bonus, and stock options. This wealth comes directly from millions or working people being forced into unbearable debt and millions being denied essential healthcare, resulting in immeasurable tragedy.

While Luigi Mangione is being charged with murder and terrorism, healthcare magnates across the country are considered pillars of the community, despite the countless deaths and incalculable suffering they are responsible for. But as long as profits are being turned for the super-rich and corporations, this is acceptable under US capitalism.

Establishment misses the mark

The political establishment in the US has tried to mollify the celebrity status Luigi Mangione has been given, but to little effect, often revealing a disconnect between their own lofty positions and that of their base.

For instance, right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro posted a video on YouTube, “The EVIL Revolutionary Left Cheers Murder!” about Luigi Mangione. Usually skilled at connecting with the mood of his base, this time Shapiro found the comment section flooded with discord. The most liked comment under his video read:

“Rightwinger here, you are wrong ben, this man [Thompson] denied 35% of claims. One was my dead parents heart surgery we couldn’t afford. He opted to die instead of give us the debt,” Such tragic tales, unfortunately, seem to

be the rule rather than the exception. Donald Trump, usually a weather vane for public opinion, remained suspiciously quiet on the topic of Brian Thompson’s death. His silence reveals an inherent fissure in his own movement: his interests as a member of the wealthy elite are much more closely aligned to Brian Thompson’s than those of his supporters who experience the sharp edge of privatised healthcare. In fact, under a Trump presidency, millions are projected to lose access to subsidies that provide access to health insurance. Trump is promising to revoke the 2021 version of the Affordable Care Act, which expires shortly after he takes office, denying millions, including many in Southern Red

states, access to healthcare.

Has Luigi made us class conscious?

As much as it is nice to think that the fanfare around Luigi Mangione has bridged the gap between left and right and forged a path forward for united class struggle against our oppressors, the truth is more complicated.

The fissures in US society run deep, stoked by decades of successive presidencies in which both political parties have pitted ordinary people against one another on the basis of gender, sexuality, race and nationality.

Even so, the class anger that has been revealed through the support for Luigi Mangione does expose the most

fundamental divide in capitalist society: that between capitalist exploiters profiting from the misery of ordinary people and the working class, who toil and suffer under this exploitation, but who also make the world run.

The anger at the healthcare system reveals that this divide still has the potential to be further exposed. An organised left movement, which successfully links the fight for trans liberation, anti-racism, anti-imperialism and women’s rights with the fight for issues like public healthcare, has the power to do what Luigi Mangione by himself could not: unite working-class people in a struggle not just for free public healthcare for all, but against the capitalist system as a whole.

Scorched earth capitalism: Wildfires bring apocalyptic scenes to LA

By Isi Stewart Duran

AT THE time of writing, firefighters in Los Angeles are warning of ‘explosive fire growth’ and ‘critical fire weather’ in the city and its surroundings, where at least 27 people have been killed and at least 31 people have been reported missing since wildfires began on Tuesday, 7 January. Two hundred thousand residents have now been ordered to evacuate and hundreds of thousands more living in high-risk and elevated-risk areas could be told to leave their homes for safety in the coming days.

Unending catastrophes

The west coast of North America is one of the worst affected areas by wildfires. The combination of dry vegetation and strong winds means that any ignition can spread rapidly. With climate change-induced rising temperatures and prolonged periods of drought on the increase, places like Palisades in LA are particularly vulnerable. In 2020, one million acres in California caught fire in one week, dwarfing all previous records. Of course, the US isn’t the only country affected by worsening wildfires: Portugal, Canada and Brazil were

other countries hit by particularly severe uncontrolled fires in 2024, the warmest year on record.

Climate researcher Peter Thorne described it as a ‘wake-up call to the world’. Wildfires are one consequence of this, and they are also accelerating it, by decreasing the effectiveness of carbon sinks (i.e. vegetation), which play a vital role in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Profiting from disaster

The destructive drive for profit above all else, which is the raison d’être and driving force of capitalism, is the cause of the increased extreme weather events that are already impacting millions of people’s lives. Unfortunately, this cruel logic does not pause in the event of climate disaster. Still, it continues to extract as much wealth as possible from ordinary people and the earth, even in the most dire of circumstances.

In response to thousands of people losing their homes, landlords in surrounding areas have already hiked rents by thousands of dollars. Similarly, greedy speculator companies were on the ground within days of the fires trying to exploit traumatised residents to buy land at cut prices (a practice the Governor

LA has become the city of nightmares as wildfires rage

was forced to temporarily ban).

Furthermore, insurance companies like Allstate and State Farm have refused to issue new property insurance policies or renew existing ones in California due to ‘significant losses’. This shows once again that the insurance industry is never about protecting people, and as more communities become vulnerable to extreme weather events, the

less accessible insurance will become.

Disaster capitalism

Last year, the annual cost of property insurance in the Pacific Palisades soared from $4,500 to $18,000. And despite California being so vulnerable to wildfires, fire protection services are chronically underfunded. Instead, the state depends on the cheap labour of prison

firefighters who are paid way below minimum wage to work in life-threatening conditions. Currently 950 prison firefighters have been deployed to contain the fires, on a wage of $10 per day.

‘Disaster capitalism’ was the term popularised by writer Naomi Klein to explain how the rich and powerful profiteer from crises. We can see this in action in California, where the devastating wildfires are already generating enormous profits for the capitalist class, despite it pointing to further climate breakdown and destruction for all humanity and wildlife globally.

To save our futures, working-class people the world over must heed this wake-up call and fight to defend our ecosystem from the capitalist system which is waging war on it. ‘Green capitalism’ was always a con, but even this pretense of concern for the environment is being dispensed with by our maniacal rulers, following Trump's rallying cry of ‘drill baby drill’. The only thing capable of taking on the fossil fuel industry and the major corporate polluters, the disaster capitalists, and their whole system is an international eco-socialist force fighting for a just transition based on public ownership and democratic, rational and sustainable planning of the economy.

Mangione has become a hero for those opposed to the rule of corporate elite

PERMANENT CEASEFIRE

TheSocialist FREE PALESTINE

What the Socialist Party stands for:

“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 century all testify to this truth, but the climate emergency gives added urgency to its meaning. That’s why the Socialist Party stands for revolutionary socialist change, and why we are organising to bring it about. We support every 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-employment. For guaranteed hours with permanent contracts for all workers.

• A four-day work week with no loss of pay.

• Reduce the pension age to 60. A guaranteed decent pension for all.

• No layoffs. Open up the books and take large job shedding companies into public ownership, under democratic workers’ control 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 levels. Reinstate the eviction ban.

• For a major programme to build public homes. Take the big construction companies into public ownership. Seize vacant properties and unused land being hoarded for profit.

• Provide culturally appropriate accommodation for Travellers.

• Nationalise the banks and repudiate the odious debt. Reduce mortgage payments to affordable levels.

Public services

• End church control of schools and hospitals – full separation of church and state.

• For a major public works programme to build public schools, hospitals and childcare facilities.

• For a one-tier, national health service free at the point of use. Bring all private hospitals, nursing homes and pharmaceutical companies into public ownership.

• Free publicly-run childcare scheme for

every community. Extend fully-paid parental leave to two years and provide high quality early-years education.

• For 24-hour free counselling services and education programmes to begin to tackle the mental health crisis.

• Free education and training for all. Abolish the Leaving Cert system and provide a Third-level place for all who want one, with a living grant for all students. Build affordable, accessible student accommodation.

Environment

• For substantial investment in an expanded, reliable and free public transport system.

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

• For a just transition to a zero carbon economy, with no job losses or regressive carbon taxes.

• Take the fossil fuel companies, big agribusinesses and corporations into democratic public ownership to stop the destruction of our planet for profit.

Equal rights for all

• Oppose all forms of racism, sexism, homophobia 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-based violence, abuse and harassment in all its forms.

• For a socialist feminist movement that unites the whole working class in the struggle against oppression.

For workers’ unity in Ireland

• For the unity of the working class, Protestant and Catholic, North and South, in opposition to all forms of sectarianism, paramilitarism and state repression.

• For a socialist Ireland, with no coercion and the rights of minorities guaranteed, as part of a free, equal and voluntary socialist federation of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, as part of a socialist Europe.

End the rule of the billionaires

• Take the wealth off the 1%. For real progressive taxation on incomes, assets and profits to fund public services.

• Stop tax avoidance and evasion by the wealthy.

• Double corporation tax. End corporate welfare policies.

• No to all forms of privatisation in health, education, transport, housing, energy, sanitation, water and broadband provision.

For socialist change

• Capitalism produces inequality, environmental destruction and war. We need an international struggle against this system.

• Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally.

• Oppose all imperialist powers, wars and occupations. No to NATO and EU militarisation. US military out of Shannon.

• No to corporate “free trade” agreements. No to the bosses’ EU and “Fortress Europe”.

• Build a new mass party that organises workers and young people in struggle against all injustices and for a socialist alternative. For a working-class movement to bring about a left, socialist government that breaks with capitalism.

• Take the key sectors of the economy – the monopolies in banking, industry, services, agriculture and big tech – into public ownership under the democratic control of the working class.

• Replace the capitalist market with a democratic socialist plan of the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.