In a statement, People Before Profit Alliance TD, Richard Boyd Barrett has described the special sitting of the Dail (Monday May 9th) to celebrate Ireland’s membership of the EU as “the sick joke of an already bankrupt government” in the context of an EU-IMF deal which was inflicting brutal and economically crippling austerity on Ireland, in order to pay-off the gambling debts of European bankers and speculators.
Deputy Boyd Barrett attended a protest outside the Dail prior to the special Dail sitting and will over the coming weeks be involved in a sustained effort to build a mass campaign of opposition to the EU-IMF deal as part of the recently established “Enough” campaign.
The ‘Enough’ campaign was established at a recently held public meeting in Dublin, organised by Deputy Boyd Barrett, attended by almost 500 people, and addressed by an Icelandic MP involved in the referendum campaigns against the bank-bail-outs in that country.
A follow-up meeting of the ‘Enough’ campaign was held yesterday in Dublin where activists agreed plans for a sustained national campaign of opposition to the EU-IMF deal and the austerity measures contained within it.
The campaign has agreed to continue a nationwide push to demand a referendum on the EU-IMF deal as well as an intensive effort to mobilise mass public resistance to some of the key planks of the austerity programme including campaigns on: unemployment, special needs and education cuts, public transport cuts, plans to sell-off state assets, any attacks on low-paid workers under the review of JLC’s and REA’s, and social welfare cuts.
The campaign plans further public meetings in cities and towns across the country in the coming weeks and a major demonstration in mid-July during the next quarterly review of the EU-IMF package. Further demonstrations are planned in the autumn in the approach to the new coalition government’s first full budget.
Richard Boyd Barrett said: “It just beggars belief that when the country is being crucified by this EU-IMF deal that the government thinks we should celebrate our EU membership. It is beyond pathetic. This is the sick joke of an already bankrupt government.
The EU-IMF programme is a plan to inflict untold misery on ordinary working people and the most vulnerable in our society to pay off the gambling debts of bankers and speculators and yet the Fine Gael-Labour government thinks we should celebrate this. You really have to wonder what planet they are on!
Every sane economist from the left or right says this deal will ruin Ireland. Even the government who have done such an outrageous u-turn on their pre-election promises to “re-negotiate” the deal have admitted over recent weeks that the deal puts us in a “straight-jacket” So what on earth are we celebrating? It’s tantamount to dancing on the grave of Irish society!
The EU-IMF deal is a menu to asset strip this country, savage the incomes and services of ordinary people and crush any hopes of meaningful economic recovery – all to safeguard the interests of the bankers and speculators who stoked up this crisis.
With this government’s pathetic capitulation to this appalling agenda, it is time to mount a major campaign of mass public resistance. Only a sustained campaign of mass popular mobilisation against this deal and the austerity measures within it can save our country from disaster.
The big turnout we had at the meeting establishing the “Enough” campaign is indicative of the escalating public anger against the EU-IMF deal as it has become increasingly apparent that the current government intends to continue along the same disastrous path as the last government. We have also already had big attendances at public meetings across Dublin against savage cuts being imposed on bus services. All the indications are that the anger is building up in Irish society as the concrete reality of the austerity measures becomes apparent to ordinary people.
Activists in the “Enough” campaign have now agreed plans to organise public meetings across the country over the coming weeks, with a view to establishing networks of resistance everywhere to the EU-IMF austerity plans, and major demonstrations at the quarterly review of the deal in mid-July, and then even bigger demonstration in the autumn in advance of the coalitions first budget.
It is absolutely urgent that we begin to mobilise all those sections of Irish society who are coming under attack – the unemployed, those with special needs, low-paid workers, and young people – and fight to protect the public assets and natural resources of this country from the corporate and financial vultures whose interests are represented in this insane deal.”