“Unemployment is at crisis levels. More than 59,000 people are officially unemployed, but this is not the true figure. The Assembly parties are covering up the true extent of this crisis. An additional 55,000 people who are looking for work are classified as economically inactive but do not appear on the official unemployment figures. The real number of unemployed people in Northern Ireland stands at 114,000.
“Youth unemployment has reached a new high with 22.5% officially out of work. Instead of creating jobs the parties in the Assembly Executive are about to set a budget which will lead to 30-40,000 job losses! This is economic madness.
“We need an emergency job creation scheme to get people back to work. The banks should be taken fully into public ownership and run democratically in the interests of the ordinary people and used to invest in a massive job creation scheme.
At the beginning of April, leading members of the CWI from Europe, as well as from Pakistan and Israel, met to discuss developments internationally, and in Europe in particular. The following thesis was discussed there and adjusted according to the discussion. 
At a time when the government continues to implement savage cuts on working people on the one hand it is still in the process of giving away billions of euro worth of our natural gas to private interests. Two onshore gas fields are next to being a gift. One in Clare and one in the North West. The closing date for the licence applications is 11 June.
Across the world capitalism has been squandering enormous wealth and resources to serve the greed of the speculating MEGA-rich. War, poverty, starvation and the destruction of our planet’s resources are happening to line the pockets of bankers, bosses and politicians.