Month: October 2011
Problem Solved? What next for Libya after Gaddafi’s Death?
While the defeat of the last major forces defending Gaddafi’s dictatorial and increasingly megalomaniac regime was widely welcomed, the way in which it fell means that clouds now hang over the future of the Libyan revolution. There are now both opportunities and dangers facing the working masses and the youth in Libya. The combination of the absence of an independent workers’ movement, the bitterness resulting from an increasingly brutal civil war and particularly NATO’s intervention, have combined with Libya’s own history and characteristics to produce a complicated political and social situation.
Defend Blanchardstown Hospital: Rebuke Labour & Fine Gael
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.
Dublin West By Election Final Message: Elect Ruth Coppinger
- Labour & Fine Gael's Household Tax will start at €100 but will rise to €1000
- They have 113 - don’t give the Government another TD
- Labour hasn’t delivered change - so elect Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party/United Alliance
Socialist Party By Election Manifesto
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.
Socialist Party TDs on Occupy Dame Street
In a response to the 'Occupy Dame Street' camp which has been stationed outside the Central Bank since Saturday afternoon Socialist Party/United Left Alliance TDs Clare Daly and Joe Higgins will seek a debate in the Dáil this week around the demands of the camp.
Further savage cuts to Blanchardstown Hospital
The dedicated staff at all levels in Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, should be forgiven if they are in a state of some confusion and great anger this morning. As a result of a huge effort by them involving innovation, imagination, dedication and cooperation, the hospital was recently rated by the Health Services Executive as having among the highest clinical standards in the country. Furthermore it is not only reaching its service targets for 2011, but is 4% over.
Eurozone: Endgame
After a year and a half, the Greek debt crisis is far from resolved. In fact, with Greece on the verge of a social explosion, a default and exit from the euro appears almost inevitable. The eurozone is threatened by an interlocking sovereign debt and banking crisis, compounded by near-zero growth. Capitalist leaders are in complete disarray. Competing national interests are a barrier to cooperative measures. socialistparty.net analyses the latest twists and turns of the eurozone crisis.
Privatisation of semi-states will only serve to worsen crisis
Yesterday the Government announced that it is going to establish NewEra, a body to manage the State’s shareholdings in semi state companies. The Minister for Finance said that the new entity would carry out ‘corporate governance’ of companies like the ESB, Bord Gais and Coillte.
BY-election 2011: ULA is only opposition that can defeat the government parties
Dublin West By-election an opportunity for people to cast verdict on Fine Gael and Labour government of austerity and broken promises
US: OccupyTogether spreads – despite repression!
The oftentimes brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Chris Hedges summed things up: “The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat.”