Socialist Party (Ireland) Struggle, Democracy, Socialism

Big corporations are accumulating massive cash hoards. Despite record profits, there is a dearth of investment in production. Corporate surpluses, moreover, are linked to public-sector deficits. Cash hoarders should be subject to an immediate levy on idle capital to finance public works and reduce mass unemployment.

Even as the votes in the  Fiscal/Austerity Treaty Referendum were being counted, attention was already moving to the immediate and medium term future of the Eurozone and the fate of the millions of people in its economically beleaguered periphery. History may well show that the treaty itself was an almost irrelevant distraction from an honest appraisal of the cataclysmic problems that bedevil the currency union as all the contradictions in its economic and financial systems assert themselves with a vengeance.

Global warming is the overriding environmental issue facing the world. 20 years have passed since the United Nations’ (UN) ’Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro highlighted the problem. However, the output of greenhouse gases that cause climate change has continued to escalate to a critical level that threatens environmental catastrophe. As emissions have rocketed, the gap between the green rhetoric of governments in the industrialised capitalist countries and their feeble policy response has become a chasm.

Job prospects for young people are projected to remain bleak for several years. According to the latest United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) report (Global Trends for Youth) the number of unemployed young people worldwide has risen by four million since 2007.

The government in Britain will be hoping that the Jubilee flotilla of 1,000 ships on the river Thames will serve as a useful distraction while it pushes through more swingeing cuts.

If you vote ‘No’ you will be exiled to Siberia! Just about the only threat the Irish people have not been menaced with over the past few weeks. Don’t be surprised if it yet emerges, as we enter the last week of the campaign around the Referendum on the Fiscal/Austerity Treaty.

Time and again we’ve heard threats of economic catastrophe, usually accompanied with advice that it can only be avoided by accepting worse austerity immediately.

After the experience in recent years of Labour Court recommendations for enhanced redundancy or improved conditions being ignored by employers in cases such as Vita Cortex, Carroll’s Joinery, Coca Cola serious questions are being asked by workers about what if anything is this government prepared to do to protect workers' rights.

The Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes (CAHWT) meets on 19 May for its first conference. This follows a period of hectic activity, public meetings, postering and protests in order to establish a campaign and the highest possible boycott level of the household tax.

After 139 days of occupying their factory, the Vita Cortex workers have reached an agreement with employer Jack Ronan. By taking decisive action in taking over their workplace and by remaining steadfast, the workers have been partly successful in achieving their extremely modest demands.