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We are delighted
to announce that a new website operated by the International Marxist Tendency
in Ireland
has now been established. The new site will carries a Marxist analysis of
events within the whole of the island
of Ireland, reports of
workers struggles and perspectives for the development of the class struggle
across the 32 counties.
Ireland: What with stalled talks over the national wage
agreement and the Pension Levy, an emergency budget worthy of Dracula and a
huge hole in the government’s finances also, there’s no surprise that the
government’s “expendenditure review body” has been christened as An Bord Snip.
If you hadn’t noticed, there is an election or rather a number of elections this week, what with the Euro Elections and the Council ones. Every lamp post, telegraph pole or slow moving animal has been festooned with posters for weeks. All of the hopefuls smile at you as you walk past, each photo carefully doctored so you can’t see the vampire fangs.
The Limerick Soviet was established on 6th April 1919, a few months after the Dail (the newly elected Irish national assembly) proclaimed independence from Britain in January. In fact Ireland was occupied by British soldiers. In an incident, nationalist Robert Byrne was shot dead by occupying troops. His death was heavily mourned throughout the city as 20,000 people attended his funeral in protest. The British Government reacted angrily by imposing martial law on the city with the use of troops and tanks. The townsfolk responded by setting up the Limerick Soviet.
The Irish economy is predicted to crash this year. It’s set to contract by 9.2%. To put this into perspective, the growth rates during the years of the Celtic Tiger were about 6%. So these figures are the equivalent of turning the clock back economically by almost two years. The Economic and Social Research Unit are predicting unemployment will spiral to 17% next year. 300,000 jobs will disappear and living standards will fall to 15% lower than in 2007.
As Easter approaches, Ireland stands once again in crisis. It is unlikely this year that we will be treated to the sight of a farcical show of strength from the Irish military or the twenty six county state government attempting to cash in on the legacy of the famous rebellion against British rule. Despite being regarded as a central point in Irish history and an event that is widely recognised as pivotal to the traditions of republicanism little of the events of 1916 are retained in their popular representation as they have been surrounded by a systematic campaign of distortion almost since they took place.
Finance Minister Brian Lenihan and the Fianna Fáil led coalition have set out their stall. This was a bosses’ budget that takes €837 out of the economy for every man, woman and child in Ireland. Worse still, if you happen to be an unemployed school leaver under the age of 20 your dole is being cut in half. RTÉ’s headline states that the “most severe budget in decades is revealed”.
If anyone had suggested a few years ago, that Ireland would be in a deep recession, that Waterford Crystal would be occupied, that Labour would be ahead of Fianna Fáil in the polls and that we would be more or less on the brink of a one day general strike, they would have been told to go and put some water in the glass to help wash down the whiskey. The whole place was booming, houses popping up everywhere, more motorways than spaghetti junction and thousands of people returning home from abroad to join the boom.
After seven weeks of occupation UNITE, the union representing the Waterford Crystal workers, has done a deal with KPS, the American company that has bought out part of the company’s assets. The decision is a bitter blow to the workers, many of whom feel that the company was holding a gun to their heads - the issue being the threat to withdraw €10 million of pension payments.
As we know there are indeed 40 shades of green in Ireland, but as the comrades of Labour Youth and the Connolly Youth Movement have explained in their open letter to the Green Party there is another one. The shade of green, that is, which justifies the Green Party’s ongoing support for the Fianna Fáil - which allows the latter to continue to hold a majority in the Dáil.
