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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!

Independent Newspapers attempt to manufacture an artificial controversy over Socialist Party and some other Left TDs’  travel allowance being used to attend anti House Tax meetings around the country is a transparent attempt to smear those who are engaged in a major fight against destructive austerity policies in general and the Household Tax in particular.

The organised workers’ movement in Ireland was transformed at the beginning of the 20th century, amid an upsurge of intense industrial struggles that brought revolutionary sentiments to new sections of Irish society. Seeing the significance in these developments, James Connolly proposed “to the toilers of Ireland that it is time to make an effort to retrieve the situation and once more to raise the banner of a militant Irish labour movement upon the political field”.

The Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes is one of the most­­­ significant developments of recent years. Combined in particular with the workers occupations that have taken place (Vita Cortex in Cork is still ongoing), it indicates the emergence of new resistance from below.

Results are as follows:

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.

The "slutwalk” phenomenon began in Toronto in January, in response to what should have been a routine talk on personal safety given by a police officer at a local university. The officer, Micheal Sanguinetti, told the assembled women that “We’re beating around the bush here. I’ve been told that I’m not supposed to say this-however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimised.”

On the first anniversary of the death of Comrade Peter Hadden we republish an article he wrote in 2008 on the 20th anniversary of the killing of three IRA volunteers in Gibraltar and the subsequent events. This article is an important Marxist analysis of these events, but more than that it is a critique of the futility of IRA's campaign of individual terror, the role of British imperialism and a confirmation that the national question in Ireland can only be resolved through the building of a mass movement for socialism based on working class unity.

Responding to the recent vote by CPSU delegates at their Annual Delegate Conference in Athlone to refuse to back the Croke Park deal which they voted against in huge numbers last year Clare Daly TD, Socialist Party/ULA, Dublin North said: