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Socialist Party members were greatly saddened at the untimely passing on November3rd of John Gahan, a staunch member of the party and an energetic activist in the tradeunion and labour movement.John, who was only 42, died after a six month period of illness which he met withcharacteristic courage and resilience.

Proposals to hand over health service to for profit insurance companies must be actively opposed

The decision of Fingal County Council officials to hire a photographer and have the photos taken of the 24 newly elected or re-elected Fingal County Councillors last year and then have the photos subsequently printed and framed at a cost of €9,471 is an indefensible extravagance in which the councillors themselves were entirely unwitting participants.

The recent reported remarks of David Begg, when answering criticism of ICTU’s lack of a fighting lead throughout this economic crisis, are absolutely galling.

In the September issue of the Union Post David Begg, ICTU general secretary and Jack O’Connor, ICTU president, argued against the government’s current economic policies. However, one thing was starkly missing from both of their statements - in fact it was missing from the whole newspaper – there was no mention of a strategy to defeat the government’s attacks on working people.

Deputy Leo Varadkar’s speech to the Dublin Economic Workshop in Kenmere last weekend should send a chill down the spines of working people, the unemployed and those in general who depend on public services, all of whom have already been made pay a heavy price for this economic crisis.

“The cheapest bank bail-out in the world”, Brian Lenihan arrogantly announced two years ago when the banks were guaranteed. The government have announced that the final figure for the bailout of Anglo and Irish Nationwide bail-out could reach €34.7 billion.

The reality of what the bank bailouts mean for working class communities is very real. Billions are already being sucked out of public services and publicly funded programmes - and worse is to come.

An Irish Times Behaviour Attitudes survey “Sex, Sin and Society” took a sample of over 1,000 people from 100 locations in Ireland and has revealed increasingly progressive attitudes on social and political issues.

The big winners at the next General Election are likely to be the Labour Party,  benefitting from the anger of voters at Fianna Fail and the desire for change.