Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Labour Party (Ireland)’ Category

ULA Public Meeting : NO To Austerity, Build a Radical Alternative – Tuesday April 24 @8.00pm, Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square

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United Left Alliance

Dublin Central Branch

Public Meeting

NO To Austerity, Build a Radical Alternative

Tuesday April 24 @8.00pm, Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square

Speakers : Joe Higgins TD, Joan Collins TD,

Sheila Judge (DEIS campaigner)

Boycott the Household Tax

The Campaign to boycott payment of the Household Tax has won magnificent support. The anger expressed at meetings and protest shows people are prepared to face the government down.

The United Left Alliance (ULA) fully supports the Campaign. Our members, councillors and TDs support the boycott of the tax and stand with those resisting the charge.

Labour & Fine Gael Bail Out Bankers

Labour and Fine Gael promised to stand up to the EU-IMF. Labour even threatened to ‘burn the bondholders’. Now they have made a conscious decision to bailout bankers and speculators and every dirty trick in the book will be used to threaten people to force them to pay this unjust tax.

VOTE NO to Austerity Treaty on May 31

Austerity is being imposed to pay off the gambling debts of the banks. The government wants to enshrine these policies in the Constitution by signing up to a European Treaty that will restrict the ability of states to fund public investment to create jobs. The passing of this treaty will lead to ever more cuts in health and education and more misery for the majority of people. It must be opposed.

Wealth Tax Will Fund New Jobs

The ULA is opposed to all forms of austerity:

making ordinary people pay for a crisis that was not of their making. Ireland is not broke and austerity is not inevitable. The richest 5% have a combined wealth of €219 billion. A wealth tax on these resources and a refusal to pay bank debts could generate billions for a programme of job creation.

Build A Radical Political Alternative

The growing opposition to austerity must be linked. The ULA believes it is time to build a radical political alternative. The ULA stands for the creation of a new party for working people that stands for democratic public ownership of the resources of the economy that can guarantee a decent standard of living for all. It does not believe that there is a just or sustainable solution to the current crises based on the capitalist market and bowing to the power of speculators.

We believe there needs to be a wide debate, involving all those groups and individuals opposed to austerity, about the best way to build a new organisation to represent working people, the unemployed and the marginalised.

Come to the Public Meeting, join the debate and get involved in the fightback.

The ULA, formed in November 2010, is an Alliance of People Before Profit , the Socialist Party and the Tipperary Workers and Unemployed Action Group. It has five TDs, an MEP, and councillors throughout the country. It is now building branches in all areas to provide active opposition to the austerity policies of the government.

For more information contact Donal at 087 7552559 or Colm at 087 2947100

United Left Alliance at http://www.unitedleftalliance.org/

ULA Galway: Counter Conference 13th -14th April

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Invitation

______________________________________________________

Challenging the Sell-out of Labour

Building a real political and economic alternative

Counter-Conference

NUI Galway 13th – 14th April

___________________________________________________

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Irish Labour Party. To mark the occasion and to challenge them on their absolute betrayal of the working class, the Galway branch of the ULA is hosting a Counter-Conference to coincide with the National Conference of the Labour Conference. The Counter-Conference will be held in NUI Galway on Friday 13th and Saturday 14th April. Speakers will include opposition TDs, trade union leaders, campaigners, academics and former Labour members.  ULA members and supporters, and indeed the general public, are invited to attend and to participate.

It is fitting for working people to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the Labour Party. The organisation that Larkin and Connolly established in 1912 has been corrupted beyond recognition. The leadership of the Labour Party has turned its back on working people, on women, on the elderly and on the unemployed.

The Counter-Conference will provide a space for political activists, former Labour members and supporters, trade unionists, working people, campaigners and all those affected by unemployment and austerity to gather together to build a new movement for ordinary people.

Further details available from:

www.ulagalway.org/counterconference

ULA.Galway@gmail.com

085 8461013

Written by tomasoflatharta

Apr 4, 2012 at 2:21 pm

New Statesman – The EU treaty is a disaster for the left

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http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/12/european-treaty-cameron-stop

Read an excellent short article on why all shades of the left are assaulted by the European Union Fiscal Pact

Labour Members’ Forum

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An egg from Maman Poulet 14th February 2012

Labour members meet to talk about policy alternatives

As they approach their first year in Government the Labour Party have held carefully choreographed meetings of party members before their equally carefully choreographed conference in Galway next month.

 

Last night about 200 members met in Stillorgan to question Eamon Gilmore on the party’s actions in government on subjects including the Vatican Embassy, tax breaks for investors and the like.

Independently of the head office verbal dances, a grass roots members meeting is being held in Dublin this Saturday.  Entitled the Labour Members Forum, the organisers have sent out word far and wide.

A group of grassroots Labour members from a broad range of constituencies have come together to start a discussion about how we as members believe our party can deliver on the values of the Labour Party. We are organising a Labour Party Members’ Forum, “What can Labour do in government?” on Saturday 18th February in Wynn’s Hotel in Dublin. The Forum is aimed at grassroots members of the Labour party, to hear and debate alternative policy solutions to Ireland’s social and economic challenges.

Speakers confirmed  include Dr. Mary Murphy (NUI, Maynooth), Michael Taft (UNITE), Mags O’Brien (SIPTU), John Douglas (ICTU), Orla O’Connor (National Women’s Council of Ireland) and Tom Healy (ICTU).

Labour Party Head Office seem to have themselves in a quandry as they try to find who has organised the meeting with a very interesting line up.  A little birdie tells me it kicks off at 10.30am and runs all day in Wynnes Hotel.  Maybe head office will send along someone to take notes.  More information from Labourmembersforum(@)gmail.com

Written by tomasoflatharta

Feb 16, 2012 at 6:53 pm

An open email to Eamon Gilmore – Film to Follow The Ghost Writer?

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http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/an-open-email-to-eamon-gilmore/

A great idea – how about a few more such letters?

The author of this open letter says that the Labour Deputy Gilmore – second in line to Fine Gael Taoiseach Kenny – employs a well-paid adviser Mark Garrett who worked for an American firm – McKinsey and Company – connected to a failed coup attempting to depose Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2002.

Incidentally, do you ever ask Mark Garret about his period working as…. External Relations Manager for McKinsey and Co, the international firm of management consultants.
Does he know anything about the influential people Venezuela? Remember when the McKinsey office in Caracas, Venezuela, was used in the 2002 coup against President Chavez.

A wikileaked cable told us of a Gilmore conversation with a USA Embassy representative in which the Labour Party leader disclosed his public opposition to a second Lisbon Treaty Referendum, was a pose.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/did-he-or-did-he-not-gilmore-dispute-enters-twilight-zone-2817724.html

The labour leader is looking like a fabulous Yankee asset – interesting ghosts these days in Leinster House!

The intriguing story of the Irish Labour Party leader makes you wonder if Roman Polanski might be tempted to make a film, using a story akin to his recent thriller The Ghost Writer, where the Tony Blair-like character is played by Pierce Brosnan.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/the-ghosts-of-tony-blair_b_509269.html

Life is often much stranger than fiction.

John Meehan

Written by tomasoflatharta

Feb 11, 2012 at 8:22 am

Time to legislate for life-saving abortion – 20th Anniversary of the Infamous X Case, February 1992

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Time to legislate for life-saving abortion

By Therese Caherty
Today – February 6 2012 –  marks the date in 1992 when the parents of a pregnant 14-year-old took their daughter to England for an abortion. She had been raped by a friend of the family. That same day in the High Court, Mr Justice Declan Costello issued a temporary injunction to prevent the abortion. Only hours after they had left, the family returned to Ireland. This became known as the X Case.
Now finally, in 2012, a group of TDs including Joan Collins, Clare Daly and Mick Wallace are preparing to force the Coalition Government to introduce legislation on life-saving abortions. This move is to be welcomed and supported.

Irish State Tries to Intern a 14 Year Old Raped Suicidal Girl Seeking An Abortion

Read the rest of this entry »

Was Liam Cosgrave’s 1973-77 Fine Gael-Labour Coalition the worst-ever Dublin Government?

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On many occasions Gene Kerrigan has argued that the Bertie Ahern coalition elected in 2002 was the worst-ever Dublin Government.

Back in January 2006, this column argued in some detail that the then government, headed by Bertie Ahern, was the worst in the history of the State

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-they-just-never-tire-of-getting-it-wrong-2660584.html

Surely the Liam Cosgrave-led 1973-77 Coalition deserves this honour

https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/left-archive-the-bottom-dog-the-working-class-paper-of-north-munster-august-6th-1976/

Liam Cosgrave Shoots to Kill

The record speaks for itself : Read the rest of this entry »

Written by tomasoflatharta

Dec 28, 2011 at 6:17 pm

Gene Kerrigan: Austerity doesn’t work? No problem… – A superb article

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Joe Higgins Warns Enda Kenny – Mass Boycott of New Household Tax in 2012

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKdjUMB1JGA&feature=player_embedded

Enda Kenny, the Mayo Deputy, the New Captain Boycott?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott

A flavour of Irish Resistance in Mayo during the Nineteenth Century : Read the rest of this entry »

A Nest of Fine Gael Labour Highly Paid Neo Liberals

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Pay and Conditions Slashed for Little People – Government Handlers on Big Money

News : http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/ietopstories/~3/GgYih_Sxfgo/

A little more detail from a Cedar Lounge Discussion :

Must admit I had never heard of Mark Garrett before following these comments – he gets a significant mention here :

https://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/time-for-a-technocratic-government-in-ireland/ Read the rest of this entry »

Written by tomasoflatharta

Dec 10, 2011 at 10:48 am