Irish economy begins to implode

national | anti-capitalism | press release Thursday February 12, 2009 16:39 by Eugene Mc Cartan - Communist Party of Ireland cpoi at eircom dot net James Connolly House, 43 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2: 087 9733414

The myth of capitalism is being exposed

The economic and financial crisis facing our country is growing and deepening daily and exposing as never before the myths of capitalism. The Irish Government and the political establishment is overseeing the rip-off of €7,000,000,000 from the National Pension Fund to support speculative bankers and developers with its decision to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and the Bank of Ireland yesterday with public money

Communist Party of Ireland
43 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

12 February 2009

Press statement

Irish economy begins to implode
The myth of capitalism is being exposed

The economic and financial crisis facing our country is growing and deepening daily and exposing as never before the myths of capitalism. The Irish Government and the political establishment is overseeing the rip-off of €7,000,000,000 from the National Pension Fund to support speculative bankers and developers with its decision to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and the Bank of Ireland yesterday with public money.

The loss today of more than 1,100 jobs at the aircraft maintenance firm SR Technics at Dublin Airport, a direct result of the privitisation of Aer Lingus, the announcement by Ryanair that they will let 200 workers go, and almost 500 jobs tottering on the brink at Waterford Glass are just the latest in a long line of planned closures and redundancies. The strategy of privatising state assets and companies, and the over-reliance on transnational corporations is now unraveling. The international venture capitalists are circling, to pick the bones of what is left of Irish industry.

While the Government can find the money to bail out bankers and speculators, the main financial backers of the establishment political parties, nothing can be found for special-needs teachers, for the sick, or to repair run-down schools and hospitals. The attacks on workers pay, working conditions and pensions is open class struggle by both the employers and the government against working people.

We have a financial regulator who slinks away with a golden handshake of €600,000 and a pension of €140,000 per year, which is the equivalent of what four workers and their families on the average industrial wage would live on, while turning a blind eye to massive financial irregularities in the banking industry.

The present situation has all the appearance of a criminal conspiracy among the ruling elite to make working people pay for the deepening crisis. Clearly Fianna Fáil and the political and economic establishment believe that the public purse is their own piggy-bank, for them to dip into as often as they see fit.

The value system underpinning the “Celtic Tiger” has left a society crippled with massive personal and business debt. It has no morality except that the of dog eat dog.

It is time for the trade union movement to stand up and defend the interests of working people as vigorously as the government and the state is defending the interests of the bankers and the employers . We cannot allow the National Pension Fund to be frittered away for propping up the bankers and the speculators. This is theft on a scale previously unimaginable.

Irish Communists call for full support for the ICTU's days of action on the 21st February and for maximum unity between public and private sector workers. These attacks on public services workers are only the pretext for a more sustained attack on all workers in the coming period by both the bosses and the government. Unity is strength.

Statement ends.

Eugene Mc Cartan

General Secretary

087 9733414.

or 01 6708707 (office)