Month: September 2011
Blanchardstown Hospital: Staff and community must act to save A&E
The HSE has cut the funding of Connolly Hospital from €104 million in 2009 to €84 million in 2011 – a massive 20% in two years when the number of patients treated has increased by 10%. This must become a major issue in the Dublin West by election and the two Ministers in the area, Burton and Varadkar, put under pressure.
Wheels coming off euro project at fast pace
Talk of eurobonds won't be sufficient to stave off crisis
How to beat the household tax
The Government plan to introduce a property tax on the family home and a water tax by 2014. They are introducing a household charge in January as an “interim measure” for 2012 and 2013. The charge will start at 100 euro for 2012. It will be levied on 1.6 million households or 86% of all households in the state.
Since publication of this article, further details of how the tax is being introduced have come out, these can be read in this article by Joe Higgins TD.
Socialist Party councillor criticises Sinn Féin for refusal to back non-payment of household tax
Sinn Féin's opposition to household and water taxes worthless if not matched with call for mass boycott
Eurozone break-up edges closer
With the prospect of a so-called double-dip recession looming in the world economy, pressure is once again mounting on the eurozone. The prospect of one or more countries opting out, or being forced out, of the eurozone is becoming increasingly real as the crisis deepens and tensions between the capitalist classes in northern and southern Europe rise.
Anti household tax campaign national organising drive
200+ people from 12 counties gathered in Dublin on 9 September for a national meeting of the Anti Household and Water Tax Campaign. Attendees included members of left parties, community activists and people angered by the governments policy of austerity including some from Donegal who have been agitating agains the proposed tax on septic tanks.
United Left Alliance TDs prepare to fight government’s new wave of austerity
Plans announced for a campaign against cuts and budget 2012
The other 9/11 – The Pinochet Coup in Chile 1973
The capitalist media and commentators have given great emphasis to discussing the consequences and lessons of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York a decade ago. Yet this was not the first ‘9/11’. Following the first 9/11, thousands were slaughtered and thousands more tortured and suffered the horrific consequences which followed. This slaughter took place not in the US but in Chile on September 11th 1973. It was planned and executed not from the tribal territories of Afghanistan or Pakistan but in the head-quarters of the CIA and the White House, in collusion with the ruling elite in Chile and its armed forces. This 9/11 should be commemorated, and its lessons studied, by socialists and workers everywhere.
No to War – No to Terrorism
The following article was written in the immediate aftermath of the criminal attacks in New York on September 11th. It deals with the attitude of Marxists to these horrific events and to the methods of terrorism generally.
Another multi-national closes in pursuit of more profit
It was a question of ‘Walk, Walk’’ rather that ‘Talk, Talk’ as the telecoms/internet company of that name brutally consigned its workforce to the scrapheap the day before yesterday.
