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On RTE radio's This Week Programme today the general secretary of ICTU David Begg voiced support for the property tax about to be levied on homeowners. The property tax will be the biggest austerity measure of all and if fully implemented along with water charges will see bills approaching €1,000 in a few short years.

Next Saturday's ICTU demonstrations should call for a repudiation of the debt and name the date for day of strike action to take on austerity agenda

The planned Property Tax is a new low for this Labour / Fine Gael government. It amounts to straightforward robbery of working class people, as well as a huge attack on people’s civil liberties.

The Socialist Party has ended its membership of the ULA. We do so with regret as we initiated the negotiations that led to the ULA and are genuine in our preparedness to work with others on the left in a respectful, democratic and principled fashion.

The Socialist Party initiated the United Left Alliance along with the Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG) and the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA), just over two years ago. In recent months the problem of the ULA’s slow progress has been added to by important political mistakes and the withdrawal of WUAG. Now, as things stand, the Socialist Party has major differences with the position adopted by others in the United Left Alliance on a number of important political issues, and on the operation of the ULA itself. This article will outline some of the issues.

The government would like everyone to believe the household tax registration figures are coming along nicely, that the boycott is irrelevant now, citing registration figures of 1.1 million out of 1.6 million (almost 70%) having registered. The reality is far from that. Here we outline the real figures.

Protests to be held at Irish Embassies across the world and at the Dail on Wednesday 21 November. Letter of protest signed by MEPs to be sent to Taoiseach.

John Maguire was the Unite the Union Convenor at the Visteon plant in Belfast before it closed in 2009. He played a leading role in the occupation of the plant which secured better redundancy packages for the workers. He has now written a play about the occupation which is due to premiere in Belfast in November. Here, John speaks to socialistparty.net about his upcoming play.

A new interim report, entitled 'Towards a Genuine Economic and Monetary Union' was circulated by the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. This will be discussed at this week's European Council meeting. Here, the true vision of a fiscal and political union of the European establishments is made clear. It is a vision long on austerity and extremely short on democracy.

No sooner had the government come out with its proposal for a referendum on the rights of children it announced that they are planning cuts to child benefit. This is an exercise in sheer cynicism and hypocrisy if ever there was one!