Worker's Party press release.

[eamo]

EU deal sets in stone the loss of Irish sovereignty


The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has said that the Irish people have a moral right to a referendum on any treaty or treaty amendments that would further erode Irish sovereignty.

Mr. Finnegan said that thinking aloud from the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste about whether a referendum was needed was not good enough. What had been agreed today (Friday) in Brussels constituted a further erosion of Ireland’s right to decide its own policy on key issues and this was something the Irish people must be consulted on.

“Despite their promises to fight to regain lost sovereignty, the government have ceded even more of our country’s independence this week. While we do not yet know the full content of what has been agreed, or what may have been conceded in non fiscal areas, it is clear that a fundamental shift of power towards the central axis of European powers has been made”, said Mr. Finnegan

“It is not long ago since the Taoiseach and others in the government were accusing the previous government of financial treason, but these new changes set in stone that loss in sovereignty and make it irreversible. If it is not legally incumbent, and that is a matter to be tested, then it is definitely morally incumbent on the government to allow final decision on this new treaty to be made by the Irish people”.

“If “, said Mr. Finnegan, “a referendum is to take place, and it is the Workers’ Party view that this is essential, then this referendum must be carried out without subterfuge, pressure or dishonesty. The Irish people are not in a mood to set in stone the erosion of our national sovereignty that was so easily given away. If a referendum does not take place it will be because the government and the EU establishment are terrified about letting the people have their say”.

Issued 9th December 2011

[eamo]

Good speech from Ted Tynan.
Can also be found here:
http://www.workerspartyireland.net/c...et.html?mid=55


Cork City Council services face huge cuts after slashing of funding by the government


Councillor Ted Tynan

Cork City Council held its annual Estimates meeting on Monday, 19th December 2011, to set the council's budget for 2012. The meeting was faced with cuts of €11 million which will severely impair its ability to deal with issues such as housing maintenance and repairs, roads, street lighting, libraries and a broad range of other services which were already under serious financial restraints. The budget was opposed by Cllr. Ted Tynan and a number of other councillors but was pushed through by the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil. Below is Cllr. Tynan's address to the City Council meeting:

Lord Mayor, Manager,

Tonight the 31 elected members of Cork City Council are expected to perform the financial equivalent of the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. The government want us to balance a budget to provide all of the City Council’s services on less than two-thirds of the funding they provided us with in 2009 which was already inadequate. Since we are neither magicians nor miracle-workers there can only be one outcome if this budget is passed, and that will be further misery and hardship for the citizens of Cork and for Cork City Council’s tenants.

I am sure there are some here who think it might be worth going to the top table and pleading with the Minister of the Environment, Phil Hogan to increase the allocation for 2012, but they already know the answer they will get. Just as the meek Oliver Twist, who asked for more gruel only to be shouted down by the bellowing Mr. Bumble, such demands will be rebuffed, if only because the Board of Guardians at the EU/IMF workhouse have forbidden it. There’s no point in asking the Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore either because he’s too busy fending off his own backbenchers who are fighting like cats over who will get the so-called Super Junior ministry left vacant by Willie Penrose.

Getting back to the nub of this problem, and all I can say is there is no way the Workers’ Party can support this budget because it is a charter for further cuts in the services that this council was established to provide. Cork City Council was not set up to be a business, it was set up to provide specific services in such areas as the provision of social housing, provision and maintenance of public streets, footpaths, street lighting, water, waste management, parks, libraries and a whole range of other services one would expect in a city of this size. But the government and the City Manager want to run the council as a commercial enterprise and anything that is not capable of funding itself is simply chopped off like an amputated limb. There is no regard for the people that were dependent on the discarded or diminished service, no care for how this might affect the communities that makes up a city and no thought as to how people will cope.

Already the City Manager decided earlier this year, at the stroke of a pen, to ignore the views of elected councillors and privatise the city’s refuse collection service – another core service that the council was established to carry out. The Workers Party correctly predicted many years ago that this would be the end result of the introduction of refuse charges. They weren’t introduced to pay for the service, which was already funded from central taxation. These charges were brought in to make the service attractive for privatisation so that a private company could make a fat profit from the refuse collection service. In a little over a year from now the 11,000 people who were on Cork City Council waivers will be thrown to the wolves as the waiver system is abolished. The government’s intention is to hive off further core services until bit by bit this council is reduced to a mere overseeing body, not providing services but regulating them. Then they will decide to abolish the City Council altogether.

I’m not sure if the government or those who control the City Council on their behalf know much about horticulture, not much if the Sky Garden is anything to go by, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you keep cutting back a plant and don’t water it or give it a chance to grow back then it will eventually die. That is what is being done to Cork City Council.

We are now heading into the fourth successive year of austerity. As we sit down to discuss our budget here in Cork tonight we must not lose sight of the big picture. Our country is in hock to the EU/IMF because the last government decided to pour €70 billion into saving zombie banks, a policy now set in stone by the present government. Let’s put that in context - €70 billion. It would cover this year’s Cork City Council budget reduction for the next 11,000 years or indeed cover the entire cost of running the city for the next 357 years, not taking account of inflation.

Obviously there are more towns and cities in Ireland than just Cork, and there are other important services that have to be run, but it is clear that the money poured into these rotten banks is at the root of our predicament tonight. It is at the root at the crisis in our hospitals, it is the cause of the loss of 88 teachers in Cork’s disadvantaged schools and indeed this bank bailout and the economic ideology behind it are the cause of societal disadvantage in general. Capitalism is rotten to the core and as an elected member of this council, and as a socialist, I do not intend to help create a fig leaf to cover up its gaping shortcomings.

A large part of the funding cut tonight is connected directly to the government’s decision to introduce a new Household Charge as a forerunner to property taxes and Water charges. Let me make clear that the Workers’ Party is not opposed to taxes. They are essential to the provision of services such as hospitals, schools, social housing etc. But there is no fairness in this country’s tax system. For 40 years the Workers’ Party have been demanding tax equity and the creation of a fair system based on people’s ability to pay. The rich pay little and in some cases no taxes; Corporation tax is regarded as some kind of holy grail while the ordinary workers are fair game for all and every levy, charge and stealth tax. The Household Tax and the other charges that will follow it are a further attempt to make the workers and families of this country – the Irish working class – pay for the criminal misdeeds of governments, bankers, speculators and economic crooks.

I am sure that there is no councillor here tonight, nor anyone in management, who is in doubt about how I am going to vote on this budget. I know that already some of them are lining up to attack me or give a lecture and to tell me to live in the “real world”, but I will not be lectured by councillors who are just back from another wasteful junket, nor by those who month after month sign up for conferences on a whole range of topics around the country and abroad and are happy to claim the expenses. Most of these conferences are profit-making concerns run by professional conference organisers and much of the information could be found in the City Library or on the internet. They are merely an excuse for a junket at public expense.

What kind of obscene joke is it for this council to spend half a million on a hanging articulated chassis now rusting in the Showgrounds and thousands more on a sculpture which is supposed to represent a cow stuck in a tree? Even Diarmuid Gavin now says it is time to call a halt to the Sky Garden which he regards as an embarrassment. Then the City Council decides to spend another €300,000 on wining and dining the British Queen and bring the city to a standstill for her and her husband and all at a time when thousands of people are left waiting on housing lists, for housing maintenance and when city services are being filleted. We are not amused. Are the hard-pressed thousands of people on the housing waiting list or those suffering in damp and draughty council homes supposed to be impressed by the aesthetic qualities of so-called sculpture or the grandeur of foreign royalty? Such frivolities come from the same mindset as Marie Antoinette and her “let them eat cake” declaration.

Lord Mayor I will be voting against this sham budget and refuse to engage in the shuffling of deckchairs on the Titanic which is taking place here tonight. I refuse to endorse the austerity which is being imposed on the working people of Ireland by the government at the behest of EU/IMF bureaucrats whether that be Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jose Manuel Barroso or their real bosses at the head of the international banking elite. This is not a budget, it is a financial millstone and must be given no credibility by this assembly.

Thank You.

Following the meeting Cllr Tynan issued the following statement:

"The totally inadequate budget passed in Cork City Hall tonight will devastate services in the areas of housing maintenance, roads, footpaths, street lighting and a whole range of other tasks the council is responsible for."

"The three main establishment parties on the City Council, Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil, had acted with a single voice last night, proving that the pact formed over 30 years ago is still active. These parties are Cork’s own Troika – ruthlessly cutting council services at the behest of the country’s new EU/IMF and ECB masters”.

“Despite their grandstanding in the Dáil on a weekly basis, there was no difference between the three main parties last night, they were a coalition for cutbacks, and true to form they also united to protect their lucrative perks in the form of conference expenses, the Lord Mayor’s totally inflated salary and other pet projects”

"There was no way I could support this budget which copperfastens the new Household Charge which my party is totally opposed to and it leaves the City Council well short of the funds it needs to provide vital services to citizens and tenants. This budget is a charter for further job losses, privatisation and the neglect of citizens and their needs"







Peace, Work, Democracy & Class Politics

[Baron von Biffo]

The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has said that the Irish people have a moral right to a referendum on any treaty or treaty amendments that would further erode Irish sovereignty.

Does he think that the government that brought in the last horrific budget gives a damn about moral rights?

If we have a referendum it will be because we have a legal right to it and the courts vindicate that right.

[eamo]

Does he think that the government that brought in the last horrific budget gives a damn about moral rights?

If we have a referendum it will be because we have a legal right to it and the courts vindicate that right.

Quite right Baron. You can be sure Michael Finnegan knows that. Lets hope and campaign for a referendum. What question asked and how it is asked will also be important.

[Baron von Biffo]

Quite right Baron. You can be sure Michael Finnegan knows that. Lets hope and campaign for a referendum. What question asked and how it is asked will also be important.

As will the answer we give them.

[eamo]

LOL. I hope so. God how I hope so

[eamo]

From WP:


The real decision in a referendum will not be the Euro or Irish membership of the EU but whether we are to have endless austerity imposed by the unelected European Commission and Central Bank



The Workers Party today publically demanded that the government hold a referendum on the new Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance, more aptly known as the Austerity Treaty.

Speaking at a press conference organised by the Campaign for a Social Europe, Padraig Mannion, Workers Party spokesperson on Europe stated: "we are aware that this government will try every legal and constitutional trick to worm themselves out of the legal necessity to hold a referendum. However this treaty is of such fundamental and long-term significance that it demands the voice of the people be heard and heeded. That is why the Workers Party, and other left and progressive parties within the Campaign for a Social Europe, would ensure that our campaigning through the political process would make it politically impossible for the Government not to hold a referendum"

"The proposed new Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union – in reality an Austerity Treaty – is an undemocratic attempt to institutionalise austerity across Europe. Its 'Fiscal Compact' would deny the right of Member State governments to run a 'structural' budget deficit of more than 0.5%. This would remove the democratic right of national parliaments to decide national budgets, with that power shifting to the unelected European Commission and European Court of Justice. This would be a fundamental transfer of power away from elected governments. We demand a referendum on any such proposition; and we call for a 'No' vote in that referendum".

"The proposed Austerity Treaty is a means to compel governments to reduce public spending so as to pay public debt. But public debt has grown because governments have socialised bank and speculator debt, and because banks have been given billions of Euro to stop them collapsing or because the rich paid little or no tax – not because of excessive spending on public services. Yet the banks and financial markets now insist that governments must become more “credit-worthy”: spending cuts are demanded - to ensure that the state can pay debts that were taken on to bail out the banks in the first place".

Padraig Mannion added: "The proposed Austerity Treaty will not revive the economy or reduce unemployment. It would result in a Europe where millions are out of work for years; where welfare and other benefits are driven down; where education, health and other essential services are cut. It would exacerbate the differences between rich and poor, and between the wealthy core and indebted peripheral countries - shifting the burden of the crisis onto ordinary people".

In conclusion Mr. Mannion stated: "The decision on the Austerity Treaty is about the kind of Europe we want: a Europe for the millions or for the millionaires. The real issue in a referendum will not be the euro or membership of the EU. It will be a choice between accepting an EU Austerity Union, with protection for the wealthy and poverty for ordinary people; or struggling with others across Europe for a People’s Europe, where the priorities are democracy and equality, full employment, social protection and sustainable development."


Source:
http://www.workerspartyireland.net/id686.html

[eamo]

We stand with the Greek working class in resisting austerity

Workers in Athens and 60 other Greek cities took part in General Strike this week


The President of the Workers’ Party, Michael Finnegan, has said that the people of Greece must not be made scapegoats for the failure of capitalism and he described attempts to marginalise and punish Greece as “reprehensible”.

Mr. Finnegan said that the sustained attacks on Greece by all of the other EU countries, led by Germany and France, were completely unacceptable and that the Greek people, and in particular the Greek working class, were being made pay for the wider systemic failures of capitalism.

The Workers’ Party President said that Greece had been subjected to outside interference in its affairs for centuries and in the 20th century had suffered invasion, bombardment and starvation at the hands of the countries which are now attacking its people with forced austerity.

Again, the completely illegal threats by Germany, France and the EU Commission that Greece will be dumped out of the Euro-Zone highlights further the complete lack of democracy at the heart of the EU project.

“Greece, the cradle of democracy, is being made an example of to force other countries, including Ireland to impose even further privations on their people. An attempt is being made to portray Greece as a pariah state and its people as feckless and greedy. This could not be further from the truth, with the exception of the tiny elite who rule Greece just as they do in Ireland and the other EU countries.”

“The Workers’ Party extends its solidarity to the working people of Greece and our warm fraternal greetings to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and to PAME, the all-workers militant front, which are leading the fight-back against austerity. The workers of Europe, whether they be German, Greek, British or Irish are not to blame for the crisis, they are victims of a vicious and ruthless ideology called capitalism which is in deep crisis because of the innate contradictions within it. Workers must refuse to be the scapegoats of failed capitalism. They must resist austerity and the real reason the Greek workers are being attacked is because they are in the vanguard of that resistance”, said Mr. Finnegan.



Issued 10th February 2012

Source:
http://www.workerspartyireland.net/greecesol.html

[C. Flower]

How can people across Europe support the Greeks?

[eamo]

Justice must now be done without fear or favour says Workers' Party President Michael Finnegan


WP President Michael Finnegan

The Workers’ Party have said that extent of the corruption and collusion exposed by the Mahon Tribunal was shocking in the extreme and deserved more than ritual condemnation. This permeated Irish political life at the highest levels and clearly included Cabinet Ministers, TDs, councillors, council officials and even some members of the Gardaí.

Workers Party President Michael Finnegan said that the tribunal had uncovered the vile stench of greed that was at the heart public life in this country. He said that the findings had vindicated the late Workers’ Party President Tomás Mac Giolla and others who had tried to raise questions of corruption in planning and rezoning up to 30 years ago only to be attacked and vilified by some of those who had now been so publicly damned.

Mr. Finnegan said it would be a mistake to simply view the events which led to the setting up of the Tribunal as mere historical events. Similar greed and arrogance had led to this country’s massive economic collapse within the last few years, he said.

“It is not so long ago since a senior government tried to lay the blame for the current recession on the people of Ireland as a whole. We were smugly told that ‘we all partied’. The Mahon Tribunal has now starkly revealed the extent to which a small but vastly powerful élite, a Golden Circle had done a lot of partying and had funded their partying on corruption, graft and deceit”, said Mr. Finnegan

It is truly a pity that the Tribunal has taken so long, and cost so much, before the final report was published. These factors have inadvertently taken some of the spotlight away from its devastating findings.

"It is appalling that the Tribunal was unable to verify the source of €165,000 that was lodged to accounts under the control of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern because of what the Tribunal describes as his "untruthful" evidence. We must ask why this man will be in receipt of a massive state pension for the rest of his life and remain a member of the Council of State when he has so blatantly refused to be truthful, and honestly cooperate with, a properly constituted judicial inquiry?"

"The Workers Party strongly supports the decision that the report of the Tribunal be referred to the Garda Fraud Squad, the Revenue Commissioners, and to the Criminal Assets Bureau. We sincerely hope that they will act expeditiously and without fear or favour. It is not enough that these awful happenings have been exposed but justice must now be done and seen to be done”, said Mr. Finnegan.

Issued Thursday, 22nd March 2012

NOTE: Michael Finnegan and his wife Anne played a major role in the Lucan / Clondalkin area in the 1980s and '90s, in conjunction with the late Tomás Mac Giolla TD in trying to expose the scandal of rezoning corruption. Today's ruling vindicates what they were saying up to 30 years ago. At the time they were attacked by senior politicians in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and others




Full statement here:
http://www.workerspartyireland.net/mahonfinal.html

[eamo]

Treaty


Workers Party call on government to publish Attorney General's advice on referendum


The Workers Party has called on the Taoiseach to immediately publish the Attorney General's advice on the need to hold a referendum on the EU Fiscal Treaty.
Workers Party spokesman Padraig Mannion said that the clear responsibility for the findings in the Behaviour & Attitudes poll in last weekend’s Sunday Times showing that a large number of people still don’t know what the Fiscal Treaty is about lies with the government. Now, rather than bombarding the people with government spin and filling studios and newsrooms with government ministers, the government should ensure that the Referendum Commission has the proper funds, and is free from political interference, to allow it to inform the people what exactly the treaty is really about, not the government’s interpretation of what it is about.
Mr. Mannion said that central to the production of a fully informed and unbiased information programme by the Referendum Commission it was essential that the government should publish the Attorney General’s advice on why a referendum was constitutionally necessary.
“Despite calls from a wide range of organisations and parties, including the Workers’ Party, the government was dead set against holding a referendum and the EU establishment was appalled at the idea that the Irish people would be given a vote on the treaty. The Attorney General’s advice to the government, which set this referendum in train, obviously indicated that there is something in the treaty which could potentially be repugnant to the Irish Constitution. In the interests of democracy, clarity, and fairness the government must publish the Attorney General’s full advice on the proposed Amendment to the Constitution”.
Mr. Mannion said that if the government, during both the Nice and Lisbon Treaty referendums, had deliberately failed to inform the public of the facts, and had made it difficult for citizens to get accurate and factual information. “We once again see that the government’s budget of €4.2 million for yes-vote propaganda will greatly outstrip the budget and resources of the Referendum Commission. If the government fails to empower the Referendum Commission to explain accurately and clearly what the Fiscal Treaty means, and what implications it has for this country, then the people can draw their own conclusions when they vote on the Treaty on May 31st.
“The government, as they did in the re-runs of both the Nice and Lisbon referendums are trying to succeed by peddling ignorance and fear. Once again we will say very clearly to the people of this country - if in doubt, throw it out. We have no doubt that on May 31st that is exactly what the citizens of this state will do".
The Workers Party is campaigning for a No vote to the Fiscal Treaty.
Issued 23rd April 2012

Note: this press release was issued today (April 23rd) before news of the Referendum Commission's report on the conduct of the Judge's Pay Referendum. The Referendum Commission makes some interesting recommendations which mirror the concerns expressed by the Workers' Party.
Read the Referendum Commission Report here: http://www.refcom.ie/en/Past-Referen...s-2011/Report/

Source: http://www.workerspartyireland.net/id731.html

[Baron von Biffo]

The Attorney General’s advice to the government, which set this referendum in train, obviously indicated that there is something in the treaty which could potentially be repugnant to the Irish Constitution.

So, we wouldn't be having a referendum to change the constitution if we didn't need to change the constitution.

Deep.

[eamo]

So, we wouldn't be having a referendum to change the constitution if we didn't need to change the constitution.

Deep.

Very droll, as they say in Cavan.

Well most folk in here know which way they are going to vote, and it ain't "yes, SIR", but a very high number out there in the real world still "don't know".
It might help them make up their minds one way or the other if the Attorney Generals advice was made public.
I suspect it would, if published, swing many people onto the "NO" side, so failing a leak (where is wikileaksl when we need them) it wont see the light of day until it is releaced as an historic document in about 30 years time. And by that time it might well be some European authority or quango releasing it, no need for the Irish local government to concern itself with such matters.

[eamo]

The Workers’ Party
Press Office

Head Office: 48 Nth. Great Georges St, Dublin 1. Tel (01) 8733916 . Email: wpi@indigo.ie



NEWS RELEASE



Friday, 08 June 2012



CAPITALIST CRISIS HAS ALL THE SIGNS OF AN ECONOMIC TSUNAMI



The growing speculation that Spain is about to ask for EU assistance to bail out its banks, coupled with news that German banks are being flooded with cash from Spanish and other Eurozone investors, shows there is an imminent danger of an economic tsunami about to sweep over the European Union that could wash the Euro away in a matter days or weeks.


Workers Party President Michael Finnegan said that the signs of a massive economic meltdown were ominous but that EU leaders and economists were reacting like rabbits stuck in the glare of an oncoming truck.

“I would compare this to the wash that one sees when a tsunami is about to hit - the tide goes out rapidly to far beyond its natural limit, then comes crashing in at a terrifying pace, sweeping all before it away. Except this is a reverse tsunami - the German banks are awash with cash right now but if Spain's banking system collapses you will have a run on the German banks and the entire Eurozone will feel the tsunami, except the flood will not return to normal levels but instead fill the vaults of Swiss and American banks with European taxpayer's money”, said Mr. Finnegan.



“Germany is in no position to feel smug about the current situation. This is not, as Chancellor Angela Merkel would put it, a crisis of poorer states threatening the stability of the Eurozone. Capitalism itself is in turmoil and is unable to react to the crisis in any other way but to move money about like the deckchairs of the Titanic. The banking system merely reflects this inbuilt capitalist contradiction. The inherent contradictions of capitalism, as Karl Marx predicted 150 years ago, are becoming more and more obvious and the edifice is cracking and beginning to crumble. No amount of plaster, or platitudes from politicians, will save it and increasing austerity will only make the impact of the tsunami on the people of Europe more devastating.”

Ends

For comment contact Michael Finnegan, tel (01) 6241851 / (087) 2631524

[eamo]

Cllr. Ted Tynan

The Workers’ Party have said that when working class people hear Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and his colleagues talking about taking “tough decisions” it invariably means that their government is about to launch another attack on the living standards of ordinary workers and the poor.

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan said that when it came to issues such as the unfair distribution of wealth in this country, the soft tax regime on big business or the restricted practices of the legal and medical elite there were no such tough decisions.

Cllr. Tynan said that despite constantly repeating the mantra that there were no exceptions to the government’s spending cuts and tax increase, the government continued to regard the country’s exceptionally low Corporation Tax of 12.5% as a sacred cow and was completely unprepared to contemplate a Financial Transactions Tax or a Wealth Tax.

“The independent think-tank TASC has estimated that a Financial Transactions Tax of just 0.1% would bring in more than €5.5 billion every year, yet the government completely ignores this option and is unwilling to listen to such suggestions”.

Cllr. Tynan said that the government’s “tough decisions” were reserved only for the working class and instead of ring-fencing the poor and vulnerable from the onslaught of the EU/IMF the Fine Gael / Labour coalition were ring-fencing the powerful and wealthy.

Issued 11th September 2012

Source; http://www.workerspartyireland.net/tough.html