23 November 2010
This Government, like the Irish economy, is holed below the water line and is sinking. The life-raft being constructed by the EU and the IMF is not designed to solve the deepening problems facing our people but only to save the rich and powerful, in particular the German, French and British banks, as well as the euro.
The IMF-EU policies will not only not solve our problems but can only make them worse. Around the world there is vast experience of the consequences of the imposition of the policies of the IMF. It has left a trail of destruction, with hundreds of millions of lives driven into abject poverty and hunger. It has taken decades for countries in Latin America to recover from the ravages of the policies imposed on them by the IMF, and it is only by rejecting those policies that any recovery has been achieved. Much of the improvement in the last decade is due to the emergence of radical governments committed to putting the people first and not the banks and finance houses.
It is clear that all the main political parties are content to allow the EU and IMF to decide the future of our people and the destiny of our country. They have all agreed, to a greater or lesser extent, that whatever the European Union wants and needs for Ireland they will comply.
Unless there is a radical political departure and the development of a people’s alternative economy, tens of thousands of people will leave our country, while tens of thousands more will will be driven into poverty. None of the main political parties has anything to offer that will be different from what this Government is prepared to implement. All the talk from Fine Gael and the Labour Party of alternatives and renegotiating with the EU and IMF is just hot air and more election promises. The EU and the IMF are not negotiating, they are ordering, and they are sure of an obedient Government, as long as there is no strong popular movement in defence of the people’s sovereignty.
We know what to expect from Fine Gael, and to hold illusions that the Labour Party will do anything different, other than be obedient to the needs of big business and the EU, we need look no further than the role of Blair in Britain and Schröder in Germany and now Papandreou in Greece to see how Labour governments carry on with the programme of the Conservatives.
The trade union movement needs to break with its present dead-end approach and to begin to act independently and develop its own political demands. Working people can no longer afford to remain passive but must become an independent political force and not be subsumed into mere voting fodder.
A good starting point is to call for the repudiation of the debt. It does not belong to the people.
