Pat is the Secretary of the We Won’t Pay Campaign which built support for mass non-payment of water charges, preventing both direct rule ministers and the Assembly parties from introducing the double tax. He is now a spokesperson for the Stop the Cuts Alliance, which brings together community groups, trade unionists and political groups who are committed to fighting all attacks on jobs and services.
Announcing his candidature, Pat said “In the draft budget, the Assembly Executive parties have declared war on public services, jobs and the living standards of working-class people. Their £4 billion cuts will throw tens of thousands more onto the dole queue, when real unemployment already stands at 14%. Education and health will be devastated, leaving a whole generation of young people without a future. While maintaining huge subsidies to big business and the super-rich, the main parties plan to massively increase the tax burden on ordinary workers.”
“The bankers and speculators responsible for this crisis must be made to pay, not workers and young people. Instead, they are again sharing bonuses of over £7 billion. While the main parties prepare to implement huge cuts on behalf of the Tory government, working people need a voice in Stormont- an anti-sectarian representative who will fight the cuts in the Assembly and give support to those who fight them on the streets. That is why I am standing in the election. If elected, I will live on the average worker’s wage and donate the rest of my salary to the socialist movement, workers’ struggles and community campaigns.”
There is a sense of crisis across the Health Service in Northern Ireland. In the last few weeks the Belfast Trust has announced plans to close 152 beds at the City Hospital and Royal Group of Hospitals from November. The Northern Trust has halted more complex surgery at the Mid-Ulster Hospital in Magherafelt and Whiteabbey Hospital in Newtownabbey. All such surgery will now be concentrated at the Antrim and Causeway Hospitals. Parking charges are to be introduced at the Antrim and Causeway sites. There is a clear threat to the future of Accident and Emergency services at the Mid-Ulster and Whiteabbey. 
As we publish this article the occupation movement has begun to spread all over the US.
According to the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, dissident republican groups have been responsible for carrying out an average of two attacks a day since the beginning of the year. These attacks range from high profile car bombings targeted against the police and army to so-called punishment shootings in Catholic working class areas. Regardless of how “successful” they are in the attacks they carry out they have nothing to offer but a return to sectarian killings.