Labour had a good day, but it's downhill from here

Excellent performance by the Socialist Party / United Left Alliance in Dublin West

Minister Leo Varadkar has disgracefully attacked the Defend Blanchardstown Hospital Campaign, that involves many hospital staff, claiming it is scaremongering and exaggerating about the threat to the hospital's future. He dismisses the concerns of the doctors, nurses and staff.

Ruth Coppinger says, “It is Minister Varadkar who is scaremongering by attacking the motives of the Campaign. It is due the work of the Defend Blanchardstown Hospital Campaign over the last months that the threat to cut the A&E to a 12-hour service has been lifted.

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Three years of austerity, four austerity budgets, and every year, every budget, the deficit and the crisis has gotten worse. The more they take out of the economy, the worse the crisis gets.

The Socialist Party's 8 point manifersto sets out our alternative to cuts and crisis. As well as being available here, it has been delivered into almost every single house in the 9 constituencies in which we are standing.

The Socialist Party & United Left Alliance election campaign has been gathering momentum in Limerick in the last weeks, with a very successful launch rally, and important endorsements.

Does Sinn Féin represent a genuine left alternative for working class people in the General Election? This is a question that many workers and young people are now asking.

Opening today’s press conference Cllr Clare Daly, Socialist Party and ULA candidate for Dublin North said:

“Fine Gael and the Labour Party correctly say that the Fianna Fail minority government,  
a) doesn't have the confidence of the Dail;   
b) has a Taoiseach who doesn't have the confidence of his own party;
c) is so utterly discredited that the General Election must be brought forward.

The challenge of the United Left Alliance to the right wing consensus in Irish politics is strengthening rapidly. As of today, a total of 17 constituencies will be contested by 18 ULA candidates in the looming General Election.

The economic crisis is resulting in an unprecedented onslaught on living standards, spiralling mass unemployment and a dramatic rise in poverty. Meanwhile billions is being taken from working people and given to bankers, builders and international speculators.