Press Release: Youth unemployment hits 20%

The general election in Ireland was historic but not for the reasons being stressed by the would-be new government partners of Fine Gael and Labour. It is that true both parties achieved unprecedented successes at the polls but these are pyrrhic and temporary victories.

The election was historic mainly because it saw the near collapse of Fianna Fail, the dominant party of the capitalist establishment in Ireland since the foundation of the state and one of the most successful capitalist parties in Europe over the last eighty years. The election results are also extremely significant because it marked the emergence of the United Left Alliance, which won five seats.

The Socialist Party, who initiated the process that led to the formation of the United Left Alliance, got two TDs (members of the Dail – the Irish parliament) elected. Clare Daly was elected for the first time to the Dail in the Dublin North constituency (with 7,513 first preference votes or 15.2%). Joe Higgins was returned to the Dail representing Dublin West (8,084 or 19%). Both excellent results also represent the outlook of many working class people throughout the country, who see Socialist Party TDs as representatives of the working class generally not just for their particular constituencies.

Ruling Sinn Fein/DUP Executive in stalemate

23 September 2008

The ‘power-sharing’ Northern Ireland Executive has not met since the middle of June. It faces log jam over a series of difficult issues. In any other advanced capitalist country, the government would collapse if its Executive was incapable of meeting for three months. Imagine the consequences if Gordon Brown or Brian Cowen  were unable to convene a cabinet meeting for three months. And imagine the consequences if Gordon Brown’s or Brian Cowan’s ministers spent that three months gutting each other in the press every day of the week.

Alasdair McDonnell,leader of the SDLP decided to start the year by flying in the faces of ordinary workingclass people who are struggling to make ends meet. McDonnell claimed that as an MLA, “you could findyourself at 57 or 58 years of age left on the street...if there was a reasonably generous sliding exit and some sort of a pension provisionthere, that would make sure they weren’t landed in poverty?”.

By Domhnall O'Cobhthaigh

Long before the current downturn in the global industrial cycle all parties in the Stormont Executive agreed a range of budgetary reductions as part of their Programme for Government.