The pillars of the Celtic Tiger economy have turned to sand. The political and economic orthodoxies of the last two decades are being challenged as the greed of bankers and politicians has been exposed.Yet, unsurprisingly, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have responded by attacking PAYE workers, those on social welfare and low and middle-income families; meanwhile, Ireland’s 6,000 tax fugitives and her cosy coterie of bankers have emerged unscathed. Brian Lenihan’s April mini-budget took money from workers to give to banks, yet again. The state is now holding around 90 billion in bad debt, resulting in higher interest repayments for the state. The pay cuts imposed through the doubling of the levy have actually had a deflationary effect on the economy.
I am involved with People Before Profit because, as a political alliance, it opposes any pay cuts for the lower paid. In fact, we oppose any policies which make workers pay for a crisis that they did not create. We believe that a National Construction Agency should be formed, to create jobs and embark on key housing, education and energy conservation schemes; that the banks should be nationalised and credit socialised; that all tax reliefs and subsidies for landlords and developers should be ended; in real change in the tax system with higher rate taxes increased, an end to tax relief on pension contributions over 100,000 euro, radical increases in Capital Gains, and an increase in Corporation tax so that it is brought in line with European averages. Unlike Fine Gael, we do not believe in holding back from taxing the greedy to help the needy.
Ultimately, we are for the emergence of a new economic and political status-quo. The winds of change are blowing globally, signalled by the sweeping Obama victory in the United States and the exposure of casino capitalism. We stand for proper nationalisation of the country’s banks and resources. Labour want to bring banks into public ownership, a measure which we support. But the Labour Party wants to bolster, not weaken, the system that has got us into this mess in the first place. We believe in credit for badly-needed public works schemes such as the insulation of houses, better schools and primary healthcare facilities, not property and hedge funds.
