Ireland
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Following on from Saturday’s
mega-demonstration in Dublin, now workers in the public sector have voted
massively for strike action, starting with a strike this coming Thursday of the
Civil and Public Service Union.
There were spectres haunting Dublin on Saturday, the fear of
unemployment and of job cuts but more importantly the spirit of James Connolly
and Jim Larkin the founding fathers of the Irish labour movement. It took two
hours to get from Parnell Square to the final rally. 200,000 people, workers,
their families and their kids, young and old, from all over the country, Cork,
Kerry, Sligo, Donegal, the midlands and all over.
As the capitalist crisis continues to ravage the once mighty ‘celtic tiger’ the
Irish government has stumbled across a sure fire method to stimulate economic
growth and raise living standards; cut the wages of the lowest paid workers! The
Labour Courts are currently debating whether to drop the minimum wage a euro to
€8.65, and Labour Affairs Minister, Billy
Kelleher, has argued that the review needs to take account of the current economic
climate. He expanded his support for the counter reform by suggesting that the
minimum wage should not be a barrier to employment. Such talk is all very well from a government
junior minister who currently earns a salary of over €139,000 per year and no
doubt enjoys all the perks and benefits offered by the parliamentary gravy
train.
It’s
only a week or two ago since we predicted that the current crisis in Ireland would
unleash a whole series of defensive struggles as the bosses attempt to make us
pay for their crisis. The fact is that, although the Irish economy is rapidly
heading towards the rocks and Brian Cowen and the bosses are sharpening their
knives for cuts in wages and redundancies, the Irish working class was
immeasurably strengthened during the years of the so called Celtic Tiger. As
the saying goes you can peel an onion skin by skin, but you can’t skin a tiger
claw by claw.
The Irish government’s decision to nationalise the
country’s third largest Bank Anglo Irish is yet another sign of the fragility
of the Irish economy. As explained over the past period the bubble is seriously
affecting the real economy and this is the outcome. The nationalisation move comes after the government had originally proposed a
€1.5 billion bail-out plan. The situation at Anglo Irish however has clearly
got much worse. Things haven’t exactly been helped by the revelation from the
Finance Minister as to how the management had been running the bank.
In Ireland unemployment is rising at the fastest rate
since the records began in 1967. It’s
now standing at 295,000, having grown by120,987 in the last year. The only
thing growing faster than that is opposition to the Israeli onslaught against Gaza. The dole figure now
stands at 8.3%. Since December 2007 male unemployment has gone up by 83% and
female by 50% (although this is likely to be a big underestimate). Among young
people under 25 it’s gone up 24%. Estimates from the state training agency FÁS
indicate that unemployment will reach 12% this year.
Reports that Waterford Crystal and the Wedgwood China Company were to go into
administration will add yet more gloom to the outlook for the Irish economy.
Waterford Crystal is an internationally known company and helps bring some
300,000 visitors to the town each year. In the current climate people won’t be
racing out to the shops to buy smart glass or china, but it’s going to have a
big effect on the economy and it shows the depth of the mess that we are in.
Not that long ago, the Republic of Ireland was being
heralded as a Celtic Tiger, with a booming economy, a massive house price
bubble and a rising population as people returned home to Ireland to join the
boom. But all that seems a long time ago now as the government announces a bail-out
plan that will give the Allied Irish Bank and the Bank of Ireland 2 billion
Euros ($2.8 billion dollars) each in return for preference shares. In the case
of Allied Irish this amounts to nationalisation as the government will have 75%
of the voting rights.
Ireland, after a long period of economic boom, is
now feeling the effects of the worldwide slowdown. Some have made big money,
but at the other end of the social spectrum there are many who have lost out.
Now is the time to raise the banner of genuine socialism within the Republican
movement and the working class as a whole.
In spite of all the main parties, big business, the media
and even most of the trade union leaders campaigning for a "yes" vote in
yesterday's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the "No" won the day. This was a
slap in the face for the Irish government and the European Union bosses.
