Joe Higgins MEP welcomes European Parliament’s rejection of SWIFT agreement

In about two weeks, a Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations will be held in New York to review progress in reaching the Milennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Last week thousands of parents, teachers and pupils staged a passionate demonstration at the Department of Education in Dublin. They were from schools benefiting from the programme known as ‘Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools’ or DEIS which was designed to counter the many ill effects on children living in areas of high unemployment and poverty.

‘It’s only €2 per week.’ Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, was speaking on RTE’s Six One News on Tuesday about the new Household Tax which the Fine Gael/Labour Party Government had agreed at Cabinet earlier in the day. Then in that interview of a few minutes he repeated four more times, ‘It’s only €2 a week.’ Had Hamlet been listening, he might have declared, ‘The Minister doth protest too much.’

The decision by the government to sell off €3 billion worth of state assets is arguably the most economically and socially criminal of the many criminal policies implemented in this State over the past three years in the interest of salvaging the financial system in Europe from the consequences of the speculative activities of its big players. It is the wrong policy at any time but most especially at a time of major crisis in the Irish economy due to a collapse of demand and a related collapse in private investment in job creation.