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Joe Higgins column

56 posts

A weekly column by Joe Higgins TD

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Mass non-payment campaign needed to defeat household tax

‘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.’

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Reclaim our natural resources

SIPTU has published a document entitled, “Optimising Ireland’s Oil and Gas Resources.”  It deals mainly with the exploration for oil and gas in this state and the implication of government policy in this area. It also gives a resumé of how the state has dealt with the exploitation of these natural resources over the past forty years.

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“Labour is now irretrievably a party of the Right”

During the General Election campaign the Socialist Party had no illusions about the reactionary role that the Labour Party would play in a coalition government with Fine Gael. We knew that Labour Leader Gilmore’s angry speeches in the Dail against Fianna Fail policy on the banks when he was in opposition, was just so much bluster that would fade the instant he was ensconced in government.

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Anti-gay laws in Uganda

When the European Parliament meets in Strasbourg for one week every month, the last session which takes place on Thursday afternoon is always devoted to debates on human rights issues in different parts of the world.