Friday’s Dáil [parliament] election brings to a close a short and dismal campaign. Outgoing Fine Gael Taoiseach [prime minister], Simon Harris, has managed to demolish Fine Gael’s polling lead in a mere three weeks. The other main party of capitalism, Fianna Fáil are now top of the polls, followed closely by Sinn Féin, with Fine Gael lagging behind in third place.
Class issues, the cost-of-living crisis and housing above all, were prominent concerns for the working class. Despite attempts by the media to make immigration the main issue, it is well down the list of priorities. Carefully ignored throughout the campaign were deeper class issues. Such as the rapidly widening economic inequalities in the South. The poverty level wages for hundreds of thousands of workers and ongoing the scandal of underfunded disability services.
The media narrative of a society and economy ‘doing well’ and ‘overflowing with money’ was yet again exposed as meaningless to the working-class majority. Millions of whom who are still struggling to get by and angered by the gap between the reality of their lives and politician’s rhetoric during this election campaign.
There is not yet a party of a mass working class character that can harness that anger in a socialist direction. Despite being mired in crisis before the campaign kicked off, improved polling for Sinn Fein during the campaign itself likely reflects a layer of the working class looking for an alternative. However, Sinn Fein don’t offer any real break from the growing inequality of capitalist rule.
As we have argued before, the capitalist establishment has sought to find an electoral formula to cobble together stable government. This is amid declining long-term support for the traditional capitalist parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael following the 2008 economic crash. Where Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will be locked into coalition, with rotating Taoiseachs, and smaller parties like Labour, the Social Democrats, the Greens and Independents making up the numbers.
Whatever government emerges from Friday’s elections the preferred option for the ruling class will map closely onto the description above. The implications of another five years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in coalition has not been closely discussed in this campaign. A merger of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be the most politically honest approach from these organisations. But, as we all know, honesty has never been their strong point.
Vote Left, Transfer Left
Given the trajectory of electoral politics in the South it is imperative that a left presence be retained in the next Dáil. Polling numbers suggest that Solidarity-People Before Profit may retain most or even all of the 5 seats they currently hold.
Militant Left members have assisted in the election campaigns of genuine left candidates. Notwithstanding our political differences, we are calling for working class voters to vote left and transfer left. This includes Solidarity-People Before Profit, the Workers Party and genuine left independents with proven track records of fighting to defend the working class and who raise class demands, such as public housing, better wages, public ownership of utilities, to take a few examples.
Mass Party of the Working Class
The prospect of another Fianna Fail/Fine Gael coalition is the product of a forced political realignment within the capitalist establishment after the shock of the 2008 economic crash. This is clearly now the preferred vehicle for enforcing capitalist rule.
How should the left respond? After the failure of the United Left Alliance, the Solidarity-People Before Profit grouping has managed to sustain itself for nearly ten years. However, it is clearly insufficient to meet the severe political challenges the working class faces. Electoralism is consuming ever increasing resources for the socialist left, while a growing far-right threat on our streets exploits class issues like housing to push its agenda of hate and division.
We have said before that a new mass party of the working class, rooted in the trade unions, and based on an explicit socialist programme is urgently needed. We would encourage the socialist and left TDs [members of parliament] and organisations to join with us in arguing for such a development.
Militant Left set out below what we believe are the ten key issues for working people at these elections. The working class should reject right-wing and far-right candidates and support genuine socialist and left forces in this election.
MILITANT LEFT’S 10 POINT SOCIALIST PROGRAMME FOR THE DÁIL ELECTIONS
- Housing
A mass public house building programme. Build 50,000 houses a year at low rents and secure tenure. Nationalise the big construction companies and form a public house building corporation under workers’ control. Rent controls for tenants. Kick the vulture funds out of the housing system. End land hoarding and dereliction. End speculation in housing and land. Seize un-used homes and hand them over to families who need them. End the scandals of bogus self-employment and sub-contracting for construction workers.
- Cost of Living
Four decades of privatisation has failed to raise living standards for everyone. More and more economic power is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The big capitalist companies control the cost of food, healthcare, housing, credit, transport, and basic utilities like electricity and gas. Workers’ need price controls on basic food items. We need to bring the major energy companies and infrastructure into public ownership under democratic workers’ control. Big payouts for shareholders mean unaffordable food and energy prices for workers. Kick out the profiteers.
- Workers’ Rights
Stronger legal protections for trade unions and organising are urgently needed. The EU directive on collective bargaining, which comes into force in November, can assist in that demand. But it is far from enough. Politicians are looking for workers’ votes. Yet the same politicians turn their back on workers who are being exploited by their employers, or when workers are attacked for wanting to join a trade union. End union busting and expose the union busters and the politicians who help them. End precarious contracts. Demand that all jobs pay a wage that allows workers to live, not just exist. Increase the minimum wage to EUR 20 per hour. Abolish the 1990 Industrial Relations Act and end legal restrictions on trade unions fighting for workers.
- Public Sector
A fully funded public sector is the basis of a functioning society. Despite the decades’ long propaganda offensive by the capitalist political establishment, the fact is that public sector workers are efficient and effective. We need more teachers, nurses, social workers, psychologists, doctors, civil servants, local authority workers, bus drivers and many more. The absence of the profit motive within the public sector offers a glimpse into what a socialist society might look like. Reject those candidates who want to build a reputation by attacking the public sector. Reject those candidates who think that the disastrous policies of privatisation should replace public provision of services.
- Public Health System
The sly privatisation of the health system must be stopped and reversed. Militant Left stands for a fully funded public health system, free at the point of use to all and funded from general taxation. Stop the privatisation of basic healthcare. End the scandal of agency staff replacing core staff. Access to healthcare should be based solely on need not on the ability to pay for expensive private health insurance. More public hospitals must be built to meet the growth in population over the past ten years. Nationalise the pharmaceutical research and manufacturing sector under workers’ control.
- Public Childcare System
Families are being financially strangled by the for-profit childcare system. This relies on keeping wages for childcare workers at poverty levels, while childcare bosses siphon off all the state financial supports into their pockets and off-shore bank accounts. Scrap this system. Bring childcare facilities into public ownership. Make childcare workers public servants on trade union agreed wages, staff levels and terms and conditions. Early years and other childcare services are vital public services that should be delivered on a not-for-profit basis.
- NATO
We need to stay out of NATO. The slaughter in Gaza and Lebanon is being actively assisted by that organisation. Capitalism is degenerating before our eyes. Blocs of states are re-aligning and preparing for future conflicts over control of the planet’s resources. The establishment wants to drag us into NATO and spend billions on military equipment – this must be resisted. We need to build an internationalist foreign policy based on socialism, solidarity, mutual respect and socialist planning.
- Public Transport
We need massive investment in public transport. Rural transport services need to be expanded to allow public transport to become a feasible option. The rail system needs to be modernised. We need to reject EU pressure to privatise the railways. Only when using public transport is cheaper and easier than using a car, will working people opt for public transport first. Resist privatisation of the public transport system and instead bring into full public ownership under workers’ democratic control. Transport is a class issue. The Green’s never understood that and it shows.
- Stop the far Right
Use your vote to see off the far Right and their fascist accomplices. Vote Left and transfer Left. The far Right is a deadly enemy of working people. Yet it depends for support from working people to secure its political objectives. Don’t fall for their lies. Make no mistake, when this force gains any political power, it always comes after workers by attacking wages, public services, trade union rights, equality for women, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights and important political rights won by the working class through decades of struggle. Workers in Italy, Hungary and elsewhere are finding this out. The far Right want to drag us back to the years of church domination and repression. Stop them now before it is too late.
- Mass Party of the Working Class
These elections show the need for a mass party of the working class, rooted in the trade unions, and organised around an unapologetic socialist programme. After over 100 years of failed Civil War politics, rooted in a politics of minor constitutional differences, with the ruling parties of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael inseparable in their defence of capitalism, we need a politics based on class issues like housing, public healthcare, education, wages, quality of work, sustainable communities and stopping racism. This means a decisive turn by the working class, who are the vast majority in society, towards socialism.
VOTE LEFT! TRANSFER LEFT!
