Workers Solidarity Movement

I remember when I was 13 trying to work out my view on abortion. Abortion was in the news, a pro-life referendum had just been passed. Most of my friends’ mothers had campaigned on the ‘pro-life’ side. Abortion was in the classrooms. I remember a teacher, walking between our desks, saying ‘abortion, abortion’, rolling the rrrs, making the word stretch. “Aborrrrrrtion - even the word is ugly”. I remember sitting there, too afraid to question.

On Saturday last (24^th November), approximately 15,000 people marched through Dublin to demand an end to austerity.  It was a lively and vociferous march that seemed to herald a renewed sense of militancy among those attending. This militancy was most evident when Eugene McGlone, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, was roundly booed when he rose to speak.  Despite attempts to claim that this booing was orchestrated by Sinn Fein and the ULA, it was clear that a great many of those booing were doing so spontaneously and were expressing their frustration at the lack of action by the trade union leadership in terms of organising a real fightback over the past few years.

Thousands of people marched from Eyre Square in Galway to the Labour Party conference at NUIG on Saturday. People had travelled from all over the country to show their opposition to the household tax and other attacks on people’s living standards. The story that made the evening news however, was one of the several hundred strong breakaway protest that reached the doors of the conference centre.

A meeting calling for abortion legalisation in Ireland, at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin, was filled to capacity last night as hundreds crammed into the room. The meeting marked 20 years from the X-case and the failure of all the political parties in the years since to legislate for the limited abortion provision required by the X-case court judgement.  The clear message was that it was time for Action on X.

The first speaker, journalist Vincent Brown described the long fight for abortion rights in Ireland, from the so -called 'pro-life' referendum in 1983, to the X-case in 1992 and the referendums afterwards.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister Joan Burton have begun the process of preparing the way for further attacks on the poorest sections of Irish society. As part of the governments strategy for dealing with the economic crisis there will be further cuts in welfare dressed up as reforms.

Labour minister Joan Burtons proposed dole are cuts designed to force people into low wage jobs.  Wages are under attack in the lowest paid sections of the economy with the active support of the government, as a result people are far less inclined to take up employment in these areas.  To resolve this the government wish to compel people to take up these jobs by threatening their social welfare payments.  This is the strategy that was developed and enforced by Maggie Thatchers rightwing government in Britain in the eighties.

Over 200 people took part in co-ordinated rallies and marches in Dublin last night to express solidarity with Palestine through support for the 2nd 'Stay Human' Freedom Flotilla to Gaza and protesting outside the launch night of Riverdance at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin.  Riverdance are intending to break the boycott of Israel by playing 9 dates there in September.  The march then went to the Israeli embassy where there was a live hook up with the MV Saoirse, the Irish ship in the Flotilla to Gaza.

Labour's Gilmore says we must all share the pain. A water charge of 200 euros a year, wage cuts for the low paid courtesy of Minister Bruton, house reposessions by the bailed-out banks, emigration for school leavers, overcrowding for prisoners, fee hikes for students, cuts in hospitals... none of this really affects the life style of the wealthy, whose very wealth insulates them against the worst effects of the recession.  Not many bankers, newspaper editors, company CEOs or government ministers are suffering in any real sense.

The election campaign has hardly begun in earnest but already the Labour Party is in the running for the Most Ridiculous Policy Announcement award. While everyone was distracted by the Fianna Fáil/Green Party circus on Sunday last, Labour’s Education spokesperson Ruairi Quinn launched the party’s new policy on tackling Ireland’s Literacy problems ‘Reading As A Right’.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte showed his opportunism when he called for a look at work visas for EU nationals. He raised the spectre of 40 million poles chasing “Irish Jobs”. It was a thoroughly disappointing turn by Labour but hardly surprising.