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Labour Party Hypocrites Back Cuts in the Capital

22/12/09

éirígí activist and Dublin City councillor Louise Minihan has slammed the Labour Party on Dublin City Council for their decision to support the local authority’s budget estimates.

At a council meeting last night [Monday], the estimates were passed by 32 votes to 16, with support coming from the Labour Party, Fine Gael, one Sinn Féin councillor and some independents. As the estimates were being inside the chamber, around 50 demonstrators, including many éirígí activists, gathered outside to vocally oppose the measures.

The council decision means that thousands of householders on low incomes, including the unemployed and pensioners will be forced to pay for their bin collection. Working class communities will also suffer a considerable loss in the level of services, with significant cuts to community facilities, parks and library services and the fire service.

At the same time as working people are paying for the greed of the bankers and developers, businesses in Dublin will now pay a reduced commercial rate, which was already the lowest city rate in the Twenty-Six Counties. This decision, coming on the back of the Fianna Fáil/Green Party budget, represents a further attack on working class communities across the capital and a reward for the wealthiest sections of society.

Speaking after the meeting, councillor Minihan said: “Working class communities have once again been betrayed by the Labour Party, who claimed just last week that they would vociferously oppose the Fianna Fáil/Green Party cutbacks. Here was an opportunity to openly challenge this agenda by refusing to agree the estimates by saying to the Twenty-Six County government that communities in Dublin would not be made to pay for the greed of the rich and powerful in Irish society.

“Instead, the Labour Party has chosen to side with Fianna Fáil and the business class by robbing from the poor to pay the rich. Services in the city will now be severely cut and thousands of households reliant on social welfare and pensions will be forced to pay up over €150 in bin charges. Given the recent 4.1 per cent cut in social welfare payments, along with cuts to child benefit, this means that working class communities will be pushed further into poverty.

“Up to now, 40,000 households in Dublin City were entitled to a bin charge waiver. How can the Labour Party justify imposing a further tax on people who have the least to give, while, at the same time, agreeing to cut the commercial rates for business in the city by two per cent?”

Following Brian Lenihan’s draconian budget, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore denounced Fianna Fáil as ‘Green Tories’ and said: “Every family in Ireland is today paying the price for 12 years of incompetent, reckless, dishonest government by Fianna Fáil, and the wealthy interests that back them. But some families are paying a lot more than others. The people who pay for everything must pay again. The wealthy, the greedy and the feckless have again been protected – the feathers in their nests have barely been ruffled.”

The Labour Party’s decision to support the Dublin Council budget has simply reinforced this Tory philosophy: Protecting the wealthy with a two per cent cut in commercial rates while expecting working class communities to carry the burden through bin charges and cuts in services.

Calling for a sustained campaign of opposition to cut backs at a local and national level, Minihan said: “The time for talking has ended. A broad based campaign against the cut backs must be built and communities need to take to the streets. The Labour Party has demonstrated by their actions that a change in government would simply represent a moving of the deck chairs.

“A Labour/Fine Gael government would simply mean a continuation of the policies that have enriched the few and widened the level of inequality in the Twenty-Six Counties. Tories of whatever hue must be removed from the levers of power in Ireland.”

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