By Conor Burke The quality of drinking water in Ireland has long been a topic of contention. Hardly a year goes by in which some incident of contamination isn’t reported. The latest occurrence of failures in our water supply network happened in Waterford and Dublin, where over 900,000 people were exposed to dangerous contaminants — with 52 people in the ...

By Mick Barry TD  “Real change” was the demand of huge numbers of people in the February election. Real change on housing. Real change on health. Real change in the pension age. Real change for climate justice. The demand for change was heard most strongly in working-class communities and crystallized around key issues facing working class people. For the third ...

By Conor Burke From 1 July, Irish Water is seeking to implement excessive-use water charges of up to €500 per year. This will come as no great surprise to those of us who highlighted the programme for government agreed between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael back in 2016. The Socialist Party opposed and warned about this element of the legislation ...

By Eddie McCabe It’s not a coincidence that three Socialist Party members who are Solidarity public reps were among those singled out from a protest of more than 500 people and stitched-up on charges of false imprisonment. Just as it’s not a coincidence that three Socialist Party members who are Solidarity public reps engaged in a sit-down protest alongside the ...

By Katia Hancke Two years ago, many working class communities ravaged by austerity demonstrated enough was enough and got out on the streets against water charges. One such community was Jobstown in Tallaght, where a spontaneous protest inconvenienced Joan Burton for a few hours. The establishment media jumped on this and tried to demonise those involved as a “dangerous fringe”. ...

The Fine Gael minority government was forced to suspend water charges. Michael O’Brien argues that this is a result of the protest movement that emerged in late 2014, the subsequent mass boycott of the charge and the fundamental weakness of this right-wing administration.

Remember when a majority of people, by maintaining a boycott, put water charges on the agenda at the last election and 70% of the electorate voted for TDs opposed to the charge?

By Paul Murphy TD “The reality is that a small clique of hard-left, Trotskyite politicians, who are quite upfront about seeking to overthrow the current system, are now arguably setting the political agenda.” (Shane Coleman, Irish Independent 17 May 2016) Although he exaggerates, Coleman captures an important part of the political reality facing the new government and the ruling class ...

By Mick Barry TD Support for the boycott of water charges is set to surge in the aftermath of the general election increasing pressure on any potential government to abolish both the charge and Irish Water itself. Pressure on political establishment Water charges became a major issue in the election with pro-water charges parties shocked by the depth of feeling ...

By Cllr.­ Cian Prendiville The Labour Party was founded by socialists such as Connolly and Larkin to give an independent political voice for workers, women and young people in the fight against the super-rich and their political puppets. It has not only broken every election promise and breached every principle, it has betrayed the very purpose for which it was ...