THE Irish coalition has been officially formed between two right-wing parties in the Republic, Fine Gael and the Labour Party, and will be unveiled today.
Labour cannot be accused of not knowing what it is doing. Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told his just concluded party delegate conference that the coalition would mean strikes and protests and ‘having to walk through a forest of placards’. The party responded with an 85 per cent vote by the delegates to form the coalition.
The coalition partners have agreed to carry on with the economic austerity programme imposed by Fianna Fail for the next four years, that is the already decided wage cuts, pension, benefit and health cuts, including the abolition of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). They will have to find three billion euros of cuts for next year.
The coalition document reads: ‘We believe that it is appropriate, in order to enhance international credibility to stick to the aggregate adjustment assessment as set out in the National Recovery Plan for the combined period 2011-2012. In preparation for Budget 2013 we will review the progress on deficit reduction and draw up a plan which will achieve the objective of reaching the three per cent GDP target by 2015.’
On top of this betrayal the new coalition is now pledged to impose a housing tax that is estimated will cost up to 2000 euros a year, as well as hated water charges via installing water meters in every household in Ireland – a land which contains great inland lakes, is surrounded by water and enjoys a justified reputation for wet weather.
The new coalition is pledged to sack 21,000 public sector workers by 2014, with a further 4,000 to go by 2015. This is despite there already being over 450,000 unemployed in the Republic!
The pledge to reduce the fiscal deficit to three per cent of GDP by 2015 will require truly massive cuts, and privatisations of state assets.
The message is if you want a job emigrate!
This is being spelt out to everybody including the country’s nurses.
As many as 80 per cent of new nurses face the sack after graduation, and have been told that there are no career prospects for them in Ireland and should consider emigration.
Last month 3,000 student nurses marched to the Department of Health in Dublin to protest against the previous coalition’s plans, which the Fine Gael-Labour coalition are to honour, to make them work for nothing!
This is the coalition that says that it is going to take on Merkel and the European Central Bank to force them to reduce the interest rate on the 80bn euros of loans that the working class must pay back to the ECB from its current 5.8 per cent.
Irish workers are already furious with the class arrogance of the ECB. It has publicly stated that what the Irish workers want means nothing, and that the deal is between the ECB and the Irish parliament, and cannot be renegotiated.
The only way forward for Irish workers is to make the trade unions call a general strike, to lead the country into bringing down the coalition, to bring in a workers and small farmers government that will cancel all debts to the ECB and the other banks, and expropriate the bankers and the bosses to bring in the basis of socialism.
The Irish workers must unite with the working class of Greece, France, Germany and the other EU states to bring down the ECB and the EU of the bankers and bosses and go forward to the Socialist United States of Europe.
