“WE NEED A PEOPLE’S REBELLION”

At a press conference this morning organised by the Right to Work Campaign, the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) committed itself to mobilising across the country for a national demonstration that will take place at Dail Eireann on Tuesday May 11th at 7.30pm.

The press conference was attended by: Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett (People Before Profit Alliance), Aengus O Snodaigh TD (Sinn Fein), Joe Higgins TD (Socialist Party).

The recently established Right to Work Campaign, which is a broad coalition of community, civil society, trade unions, political groups and individuals has called the demonstration to oppose the escalating bailout of Irish Banks and calling instead for the government’s priority to be focused on bailing out jobs, incomes and public services for ordinary workers and citizens. The May 11th protest is also officially sponsored by the trade union UNITE. The May 11th protest will be addressed by Fintan O’ Toole (Journalist), John Bisset (Canal Communities), Walter Cullen (UNITE), John Kidd (SIPTU Firefighters), Siobhan Mc Guire (Community Workers Co-Op) & others.

In it’s statement the PBPA, called for a “people’s rebellion” against the current government and it’s policies, which it said were leading to a decimation of jobs, incomes and public services, while protecting the institutions and wealthy elites that were responsible for the crisis in the first place.

At the Dublin City Council Budget meeting on 21 December 2009, Killian Forde proposed the budget as Chair of the Finance SPC and voted in favour of it. As a Sinn Fein member he was apparently, in breach of his party’s mandate. The most controversial content of the budget was the removal of the waiver for social welfare recipients of the waiver on bin lifts (the waiver remains on the standing charge of €95 per annum).

Sinn Fein says he went against the party mandate on the budget given their opposition to the removal of the waiver but this is not the first time that SF councillors voted in differing ways on the budget. In the past a number of their councillors voted for and others against the same budget, all of which contained bin charges. It seems though that this has been a step too far and Forde has resigned from the party saying he would be guilty of “chancery” if he voted against this budget.