Unite

Tax Cuts over Investment will mean Austerity for the Majority.

Conor McCabe discusses the truth about the government’s summer economic statement and the continuation of austerity through high rents, low wages, increased costs and a lack of investment in our social infrastructure.

Last week the government published the Summer Economic Statement and laid out the broad spending parameters for the budget in October.

Released late on Wednesday 14 July, less than 24 hours before the Dáil summer recess, it was quickly hailed by the media as proof positive of a dramatic and significant turnaround in economic policy by the government parties of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens.

The Irish Times stated that the apparent change in direction was ‘undeniably linked to the housing crisis and the political fallout awaiting Coalition parties if the status quo continues’.[1]

At the same time the Irish Independent loudly proclaimed that Paschal Donoghue had loosened the purse strings, with the expected post-pandemic boom funding ‘four years of tax cuts’.[2]

The good times, it seems, are on the horizon. The government has learned the error of its ways.

Only The Journal.ie voiced a note of caution, having read the actual document instead of just quoting from the executive summary and assorted press releases.

It found no specific financial allocation to housing anywhere in the Statement, merely a commitment to fix the housing crisis – which is, after all, already government policy.

‘We don’t know exactly how much the Government plans to allocate specifically to housing in Budget 2022’ it said. Nor will we have a clear idea until the Housing For All strategy is published on 26 July.

In fact, far from being a dramatic change in direction, the Summer Economic Statement reveals a government and a state that remains in thrall to the market and the fiction of tax-cut-led growth.

In terms of expenditure, the Statement says that the government will allocate an extra €1.1 billion to capital projects in 2022. (Sinn Féin has pointed out that once allocations are made to the Brexit Adjustment Reserve, in reality this figure will be in the order of €800m.)

This extra funding will stretch across all government departments, including not just housing but health, education, transport, as well as climate action measures.

To put that into context, the ESRI recently said that the state would need to spend an extra €2 billion a year on social housing alone in order to have any chance of tacking the housing crisis.

Whatever measures the government comes up with in the Housing for All strategy and in the October budget, it is clear that any net increase in housing spend will be of the order of hundreds of millions, and nowhere near the €2 billion that is actually needed for 2022.

The one figure that is crystal clear in the Statement, though, relates to tax cuts.

At a time when the need for capital investment in our social infrastructure has never been stronger nor clearer, the government has announced €500m in tax cuts every year for the next four years.

In other words, instead of putting €2 billion into social housing, the government has instead committed itself to €2 billion in tax cuts.

This defies all logic and is completely geared towards the minority of voters in Ireland who crave such cuts over services[3] – a minority that nonetheless in all likelihood votes Fine Gael.

This would explain why the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has been calling for such cuts, despite a clear majority of people in Ireland in favour of investment in social services.

The Tánaiste and his party, with the support of Fianna Fáil and the Greens, are engaged in an ideological project that sees tax avoidance as a God-given right and to hell with the consequences.

For all their talk of the national interest, the government parties are pandering to their base with a rugged determination.

At the same time, there is a grain of truth in the ‘lessons learned’ line of the establishment media.

The Summer Economic Statement shows that there are no overt austerity cuts on the horizon for at least the next two years.

It has placed warning signs on the period 2024 onwards, saying that the EU fiscal rules in all likelihood will have returned by then, and that in 2023 the government will borrow for capital spend only.

This approach, however, will have the benefit of sparing the coalition government any attention-grabbing cuts to services.

However, austerity will continue as in its present form, through high rents, low wages, increased costs and a lack of properly focused investment in our social infrastructure.

This includes a lack of investment not only in housing, but also in health, education, transport, care (including childcare) – as well the type of visionary climate action plan that present circumstances demand.

And by investment we mean genuine public investment – not privatised outsourced solutions that end up costing billions with no net long-term benefit to the state.

The lack of an overt austerity agenda also means that for those of us on the left, there will be a need for a more focused and analytical approach to the right-wing agenda of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens.

The devil, for the next two years at least, is going to be in the detail. Shouts of ‘cuts’ are not going to be enough, and with that in mind, now would be a good time to adapt our research and analysis accordingly.

[1] Eoin Burke-Kennedy. ‘Q&A: Why has the Government changed its economic policy?’ Irish Times, 15 July 2021. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/q-a-why-has-the-government-changed-its-economic-policy-1.4621294

[2] Philip Ryan. ‘Post-pandemic boom to fund four years of tax cuts as Donohoe loosens purse strings.’ Irish Independent, 15 July 2021. https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/tax/post-pandemic-boom-to-fund-four-years-of-tax-cuts-as-donohoe-loosens-purse-strings-40655232.html

[3] Michael Brennan. ‘Public don’t want tax cuts at expense of public services, poll reveals’. Business Post, 27 June 2021. https://www.businesspost.ie/politics/public-dont-want-tax-cuts-at-expense-of-public-services-poll-reveals-953e3fbd

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: ITS TIME EMPLOYERS STOOD UP

Unite member and FSU Official Mandy La Combre provides a guest blog this week on how domestic violence relates to work places and the policies needed to give protection to workers suffering abuse by domestic violence.

Mandy La Combre FSU & ICTU Women’s Committee

The Irish Government ratified the Istanbul Convention in 2019. Amid much publicity we were told that the ‘Council of Europe Convention on Preventing Violence against Women and Domestic Violence’ was a significant step forward. And so it should have been. The purpose of the Convention is to set out a comprehensive framework of policies and measures to ensure the ‘protection of women from all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence’. On International Women’s Day of the same year Taoiseach Leo Varadkar famously announced that he was calling for an end to the ‘epidemic’ of violence against women.

Ireland has less than one third of the number of refuge spaces than the convention requires.

Yet, since 2019, figures for violence against women, and domestic violence statistics have risen dramatically. Statistics show that Women’s Aid had 19,258 disclosures in 2019, and in 2020 calls were up 43%. Alarmingly Ireland has less than one third of the number of refuge spaces that the Convention requires. 1 in 4 women now experience domestic abuse in Ireland and, according to the World Health Organisation, 1 in 3 women will experience some form of domestic abuse in their lifetime. The over reliance on outreach and charitable services provides cover for government delays to follow up on the Convention and their commitment.

As reported cases spiked heavily during the Covid-19 pandemic Sinn Fein’s ‘Organisation of Working Time (Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2019’ gained cross party support. The bill provides for legislative proposals for the establishment of a statutory entitlement to 10 days paid domestic violence leave. This is a significant step forward in not only highlighting the challenges workers in abusive situations at home face, but also in attempting to eradicate the stigma surrounding domestic violence in the workplace. The Bill will be brought forward by the end of 2021. As a trade unionist active in this area however I believe that, while the 10 days leave is extremely important and having it legislated for is absolutely warranted, on its own and without robust workplace policies it could well see little take up. This is why it is essential that domestic violence workplace policies must be a serious focus for all unions in all sectors.

But what about employers?

Equality Minister Roderic O’Gorman’s Department has met with ICTU to discuss the need to marry good domestic violence workplace policies with the 10-day statutory entitlement. This move was most welcome. ICTU affiliates and members of the ICTU Women’s Committee were afforded the opportunity to put forward our case in this regard. However, at an ICTU seminar about the Bill this year the Minister stated ‘I am seeking the views and advice of employers groups regarding the potential impact of such leave and how the proposals could be implemented in a manner that would mitigate any potentially negative impacts on business.’

This is worrying. Safety and wellbeing is the absolute priority here and, as such, unions should be ensuring that we do not fail our members at this vital juncture. ICTU’s strong submission to the Department points out that the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, who provide data for Ireland on domestic abuse disaggregated by employment status, shows that 31% of employed women have experienced some form of violence by a partner since age 15 years. That is a staggering finding.

This Summer also saw the consultation commence on the ‘Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender based Violence’, an important piece of work steered by the Department of Justice (DOJ), partnering with Safe Ireland and the National Women’s Council of Ireland. The strategy is to be published by year end and will be a living document aimed at addressing the needs of victims, holding perpetrators to account and changing societal attitudes. The Department itself recognises the failure of the previous strategies and hope that the third strategy has a more successful implementation. Unions hope so too and we must demand that the necessary Government resources are allocated this time.

As part of the consultation process with ICTU a small group of us met with the DOJ and put forward suggestions from a worker’s point of view. We addressed the Istanbul Convention, sexual harassment in the workplace, ILO Convention 190, and domestic violence workplace policies. It is important that we continually emphasise to Government the importance of holding employers accountable on all equality issues. We must also demand that Government agencies encourage employers to be more amenable when Unions seek agreement on implementing new policies to support vulnerable workers.

When a worker is living with domestic violence there are very real negative impacts that flow into the workplace.

So why do we need domestic violence workplace policies?

One would assume with all the fanfare from Government on their ‘strong equality agenda’, that employers would be encouraged to line up to do the right thing but, unfortunately, it has been difficult to get employers to listen.

In 2014 ICTU launched a landmark all-Ireland on-line survey on people’s experience of domestic violence and the workplace. The findings were remarkable:

82% of respondents were women
75% of those abused women were targeted in the workplace
53% missed at least 3 days of work a month
94.4% said they thought domestic violence can have an impact on the lives of working people.

When a worker is living with domestic violence there are very real negative impacts that flow into the workplace. The survey results highlighted many of these issues; increased sick days, lower productivity, low morale, impacts on relationships with co-workers, and of course health and safety itself.

Since 2014 ICTU have been advocating for domestic violence workplace policies to be introduced in all workplaces yet it still remains difficult to convince employers that it is indeed a workplace issue. But with domestic violence highlighted so much over the last year, as reported figures soared during the Covid pandemic and with the increase in homeworking, employers can no longer use ignorance as an excuse.

The pervasiveness and severity of domestic violence impacting the workplace demands the attention of employers, yet employers may be reluctant to dig into employees’ personal lives. However, through providing support for abused employees and having a policy in place an employee knows that an employer is aware of the issue, can provide training for the workforce, and most importantly can direct victims to resources. Employers are not expected to be experts but they should be cognisant of the fact that sometimes the workplace is the only avenue of respite that a victim has. The workplace is often a place of refuge and safety for someone living with abuse. Perhaps the only one.

Equally domestic violence has no boundaries and often doesn’t ‘stay at home’. We know many abusers also target their victims in the workplace in various ways. Sometimes harassment can be by phone or email, through stalking on the way to and from work, by physically preventing a victim from going to work or even showing up at the workplace. Co-workers have also been threatened. Once employers understand that domestic violence can impact their workplace the real policy work begins. Any program’s success will depend on its integration into the company’s culture and business practices. Notably it has been private sector unions and employers that are leading the way in securing policies.

Recent policies have been agreed by the Financial Services Union and the Communication Workers Union in both the finance and communications sectors. These policies include provision for a number of significant practical support measures including:

Proper information and education on the subject
Access to confidential and independent counselling services paid by the employer
No negative actions for ‘excessive absences’ in sick leave policies
No negative actions for under performance with victims/survivors
Special paid leave (minimum 10 days)
Paid time off for visits to support agencies, Solicitors, court hearings, re-housing needs or childcare issues
Flexible working arrangements
Temporary or permanent changes in location / work times / front facing public roles
Diverting phone or email
Salary advancement if an employee is escaping a violent situation or suffering financial abuse
Ensuring the victim/survivor never works alone if that is what they request
Proper security procedures in place should a perpetrator show up at the workplace
Procedures for dealing with perpetrators in the workplace
List of support services
Commitment to confidentiality

It is important that any policy is not just a ‘paper policy’ and is backed up by a proper support system with specialist training and safety planning.

These workplace policies are crucial because losing a job can often mean losing a way out.

Research shows that women with a history of domestic violence are more likely to have lower personal incomes due to a disrupted work history. They may have to change jobs more often or be employed in casual or precarious employment. Keeping a job is a key pathway to leaving violent relationships. Being in work is often the only time a person being abused has the freedom and capacity to plan their escape without their abusers knowledge. The ICTU survey revealed how rarely those experiencing domestic violence disclose it to anyone in work but having a policy in place that addresses domestic violence breaks the stigma and shows workers experiencing violence that they are not alone.

Minister O’Gorman described the issue as ‘a multifaceted problem that requires all arms of the State to work together to address the issue and support those who are experiencing such violence’. He is right.

It is time for employers to step up.

Need help? Support is available:

The 24/7 National Freephone Helpline for Women’s Aid is 1800 341 900. There is an online chat service on womensaid.ie operating mornings and evenings and a text service for people who are deaf and hard of hearing on 087 959 7980.
SafeIreland.ie offers a list of 38 domestic abuse services in towns across Ireland.
For urgent assistance, call An Garda Síochána on 999 or 112.

St Patrick, Masks, and Resisting Hate Agendas

Brendan Ogle: This week, a number of unions started distributing masks bearing the legend ‘pro-mask is pro-worker’. It seems an obvious statement. After all, it is workers – especially in low-paying sectors – who have borne the economic and health brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet there are those cynically trying to convince working people that they should oppose public health measures and breach guidelines en masse.

Mixed messaging from public authorities, and the complete mess made of the vaccination rollout by the EU and our Government, has heightened frustration at the restrictions associated with Covid-19, and this has been compounded by the unequal impact of the pandemic. While lockdowns have had a minimal financial impact on some workers, many others have lost their jobs and been forced to rely on state income supports.

Continue reading “St Patrick, Masks, and Resisting Hate Agendas”

Workers’ Rights Have Crumbled Into Virtual Non-Existence

Brendan Ogle: I have decided to write this article at this juncture for a number of reasons.

* Firstly, insofar as Irish workers can rely on any meaningful legislative support to protect their collective rights as workers those supports have crumbled into virtual non-existence

* Secondly, we have just had imposed upon us yet another Government that not a single person in the state voted for, with a programme for Government that fails absolutely to provide one iota of additional support for such workers, or even to acknowledge a problem

* And finally, in this neoliberal era the levels of inequality between labour and capital is now so extreme, and the resultant deprivation in a world and nation of such riches so acute, that the Trade Union movement of workers must now fundamentally change approach and take affirmative actions, or stand accused of simply existing to enable our class oppressors continue to trample on working people in the pursuit of extreme greed.

Continue reading “Workers’ Rights Have Crumbled Into Virtual Non-Existence”

Sick Ireland in a nutshell

Mapping inequality? The International Financial Services Centre where the body of a homeless man was discovered.

Brendan Ogle: A homeless support group has described how the body of a homeless man was discovered in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) today. This needless loss of human life on our streets is a personal tragedy for this man, and for their family and friends. It is hard to escape the dark symbolism of deaths of people without homes within the IFSC.

Continue reading “Sick Ireland in a nutshell”

Where were these guys on Saturday?

Garda public order unit 10 December 14 — The Garda Public Order unit at a Right2Water demonstration, 10 December 2014

Brendan Ogle: There was a fascist demonstration outside the Dáil last Saturday in pursuance of building an Irish Nazi Party. Yes, in the era of Trump the virus has international tentacles which have reached here. For the first time since O’Duffy’s Blueshirts, fascists are on Irish streets.

About 200 turned up. The pretext was protesting because a gay Government Minister was photographed years ago with some English lad with questionable views on the age of sexual consent.

This is enough for the gay Minister to be called a paedophile by fascists using the decades-old trope that gay people abuse children. Funny, where this actually happened (actual child abuse) for decades in the Catholic Church, the fascists not only didn’t notice it but they applaud the Church and its extreme conservative lobby groups. They even write for them and invite them on their fascist protests and everything,

But don’t expect consistency. These are fascists, arch advocates of ‘the end justifies the means’. They wave Irish flags too, and declare themselves patriots, yet their organisers have links with loyalist paramilitaries, UKIP and the English Defence League. International fascism. A century and a decade ago, Connolly would have dealt with them. Dublin then had the forebears of this rabble, they were always among us, but there weren’t any of them in the Irish Citizen Army. No, they were the ones throwing rotten fruit and vegetables at them in 1916 and siding with the oppressor.

You can see the lines of argument though. Agree with our fascism or you aren’t a patriot. Agree with us or you support paedophilia. They’ve already used the ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘anti-corruption’ tropes. It’s classic Germany of the 1920s, if any of them had ever read a book. But it appears only the ringleaders have, and they are following the supremacists’ ‘to do list’ assiduously.

Predictably, the event was full of angry men roaring and spouting hate into microphones, threatening people. In case anybody is unsure of their hateful intent, they usefully produced banners with nooses on them. A small number of people (10) turned up to counter protest, and were violently attacked. It looked like a KKK rally; all it was missing were hoods and a burning cross.

But here’s the point. They are disappointed at the numbers and I have seen them frustratingly asking “why did so many people turn up for anti-water-charges protests but not for us”?

This puts me in mind of this photo. This is the Garda Public Order Unit at an anti-water-charges march on 10 December 2014. I’m wondering why did these guys turn up for the Right2Water march, but not on Saturday?

The march back then had 70,000 attendees and ended with a five hour rally. There was no hate speech, no incitement, no fascism, no defamation, no violence. But the Government of the day was threatened, and ultimately defeated, on the issue. And because they were threatened, they sent this.

But it would appear they aren’t threatened by Saturday’s mob of hate. They are probably right. Certainly the numbers attending and the pathetic election results would suggest they are right. But it’s fascism. It’s violent and it’s inciting violence and hatred. The public deserve to be protected from such menace.

As Civil War politics ends at last, Ireland’s first progressive government is now a realistic ambition

Klopp — Although I am not a Liverpool fan I think for the week that is in it this is an appropriate image to accompany this particular blog

Brendan Ogle: When I joined the Amalgamated Transport & General Workers’ Union (now Unite) over 20 years ago the Union was affiliated to the Labour Party (this remained the case until Unite rightly disaffiliated in 2013) but had a policy in place called ‘The Third Way’. This policy was passed, produced in booklet form, and pushed both within the Union and the Labour Party.

The policy, which I agreed with, was very simple. It argued that the Labour Party should have a rule forbidding entering coalition with either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael because, if it did so, the result could only be that both of those parties would have to come together to form a Government. While negative in itself this, however, would then open up a political space on the left and Ireland would have a right/left political system rather than the old ‘my Grandad was a great Dev/Collins man’ baloney that passed for ‘politics’ in this state for far too long.

Of course the Labour Party rejected such a notion of principle and strategy, and instead decided to continue to offer itself up as a mudguard to both Fianna Fail (FF) and Fine Gael (FG) as and when demanded by them and the conservative media consensus. This approach reached its inevitable low point with the despised FG/Labour Government from 2011-2016, when the Labour Party made an enemy of its own voter base in order to protect Fine Gael’s. It resulted in the loss of 80% of its seats along with any respect or moral authority, and the party has been borderline irrelevant ever since. As Civil War politics ends at last, the Labour Party can ponder from their small number of seats in opposition just what might have been had they recognised this day coming and brought it about much earlier.

In 2016 Noel Dempsey, former Deputy Leader of Fianna Fail and serial Minister, let the cat out of the bag when discussing that year’s election impasse. As FF and FG continued to slide in overall popularity, Dempsey was asked whether it was time both parties finally came together as, on policy, they were practically the same anyway. Dempsey put it bluntly by admitting that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael existing separately had prevented a left developing in Ireland. And he was right, on that anyway.

“Almost a century after independence we have still never had a progressive Government”

Almost a century after independence we have still never had a progressive Government. We have never had a Government fundamentally committed to a re-distribution of wealth downwards. We have never had a Government that wasn’t led by either FF or FG. We have never had a Government that didn’t put the demands of the property and landlord class, the elites, the gombeens, over the needs of the people. We have never had a Government that put the good of the many above the greed of the few.

Obviously we have had people and parties who do not support this right wing hegemony but conservatism, both social and political, was so strong that they were always confined to the fringes. This has changed. The right to divorce has been followed by marriage equality, sexual freedom, improved gender rights and Repeal of the Eighth Amendment as people power pushed clerical and political conservatism aside on social issues. These seismic changes, however, stand in stark contract to economic policy. Ireland is a tax haven riddled with inequality, we have socialised tens of billions of Euro of private speculators’ debts, we have a health system built on ensuring private profit over public health, there is a housing emergency created and sustained to enrich landlords and vulture funds, and we have the worst workers’ and Trade Union rights in our peer group of nations within the EU. I could go on.

But we have never had an electable ‘left’. In a political landscape heretofore dominated by conservatism, it is not surprising that all we have seen to date is the development of a range of small principled but doctrinaire parties and individuals, none of which have ever gotten even 10% of the number of seats or votes necessary to come to power. It may not be surprising, but it can no longer be good enough. Some, on principle, don’t even want to come to power within a capitalist system and describe progressives who seek an alternative Government to FF and FG as mere ‘reformers’.

“The opportunity for reform has never been greater, nor the need more acute”

But the opportunity for reform has never been greater, nor the need more acute. The current programme for Government is a neoliberal charter of political expediency, a treaty entered into by those desperate for power for power’s sake. Sinn Fein (SF) will now lead an opposition as the largest party in the state. It is telling that the largest party in the state has less than half the seats necessary to form a majority Government, but SF are nevertheless entitled to highlight the hypocrisy of refusals to engage with them on entering Government by those who so loudly demanded they do exactly that in the North.

I have no doubt however that both SF, and any ambition for Ireland’s first non Fianna Fail or Fine Gael Government, would have been significantly damaged had SF entered Government with either of Ireland’s two Tory parties. SF have some of the policies and personnel to lead a very effective opposition. But if we are to finally see the Irish electorate push both of those parties out of office in the next election, the rest of the left needs to coalesce and move beyond the politics of protest and eternal opposition.

There is much to be learned from the mass protests and organisation that led to the social changes outlined above, and the anti-water charges movement too. But progressive policy principles in the areas of Health, Housing, Workers’ Rights and the Environment, including water, can now potentially form an electable political platform to put before the electorate next time round. There is a chance for various shades of opposition to now begin to work together with, for the first time, the achievable ambition of our first progressive Government.

On the weekend that the electorate finally forced Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to come together, rather than be downhearted let us look at this as a long necessary and overdue evolution. An opportunity.

“Irish politics has at last moved past the Civil War and is reaching adulthood”

Irish politics has at last moved past the Civil War and is reaching adulthood. The future is there for a better, fairer Ireland. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael coming together (and the Greens throwing themselves under a bus) creates the space to build for Ireland’s first progressive Government at last. Such a Government is a necessary ambition to drive greed and inequality out of office for once and for all.

Brendan Ogle

28 June 2020

Unity over Division

On Wednesday, ROI Senior Officer Brendan Ogle submitted the following letter to the Irish Times for publication. It seems they decided not to print it, so we are publishing the full text below:

“Sir,

On page 22 of your newspaper (23 June 2020) you have a large photograph which bears the words ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’. These words and their presentation are a racist trope designed to undermine the global anti-racist ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign. Worse, the photograph contains a large artificially superimposed sets of the words, as the original words are being flown on a banner behind an aeroplane over a football ground and are virtually invisible. These larger words were presumably superimposed by your newspaper or the photographer. In either event, they dominate page 22 of your newspaper.

Efforts by racists and fascists to exploit sport include the Nazi exploitation of the 1936 Olympiad and Franco’s adoption of Real Madrid as a football club to popularise his fascist ideology. Further, since at least the 1970s, British xenophobes and racists have sought to append their toxic agenda to some of the country’s football clubs. It is no surprise that, given the global effort to finally address the historic racism against Black people in the wake of the disgusting murder of George Floyd, these elements would redouble their efforts to introduce race hate into football.

The surprise is that the Irish Times sees fit to assist them with this shocking display. It is tantamount to your newspaper offering a free advert to English racists.

I want to register my personal shock that your paper saw fit to produce this image and I also want to do so on behalf of Unite Trade Union, an avowedly anti-racist organisation who are involved in fighting racism in many forms in workplaces and in our community. Perhaps the Irish Times will consider this publication and whether some acknowledgment of a mistake is appropriate in the circumstances.

Yours

Brendan Ogle
Unite Senior Officer – Republic of Ireland”

No to another decade of austerity!

Austerity kills — 2012 Dublin demonstration against austerity

As the EU line up to kick Ireland again, unions must lead in defending jobs, sustainable Irish business & provision of improved public services

Brendan Ogle: As the ESRI predict the worst recession in our history, trade unions and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) have led the way in providing a comprehensive and workable counter-analysis to the hawkish calls for austerity from Ireland’s crushing neoliberal consensus.

In the very weeks when Fine Gael and Fianna Fail first seemed to rule out tax increases going forward (including the ongoing refusal to accept the Apple Tax), and then state-led borrowing, an attack began on the COVID-19 payment, with people who have been forced into isolation being targeted for ‘being better off’ on €350 a week. Now we learn that, of €750bn targeted by the European Commission in a recovery fund of grants and loans for 27 member states, Ireland is earmarked for just €1.9 billion, a tiny 0.25% of the total. This for a country that Eurostat found had been forced to pay 42% of the total cost of the European banking debt following the financial crash.

Continue reading “No to another decade of austerity!”

WHO IS GUILTY OF THE PENSION SWINDLE?

Brendan Ogle on why we should be able to access the state pension at 65 like our hypocritical politicians do.

‘OH NO WE DIDN’T’ – ‘ OH YES YOU BLOODY WELL DID!’

Last Tuesday (21/1/20) Unite’s Irish Executive Council passed a motion committing us to campaigning to restore the state pension age to 65 in the Republic of Ireland. This was on foot of a motion brought forward from the Waterford Community Branch. Yesterday (23/1/20) I attended a News Conference for the ‘STOP67’ campaign, supported by ICTU, that seeks to prevent the enactment of the legislative provision that would see the current pension age of 66 rise further to 67 in January next year. The background to this issue, which has suddenly become an election issue, is extraordinary and exemplifies both the hypocrisy in Irish politics and the failure of the Irish media to effectively call that hypocrisy out.

When we all retire is of course linked to when we can draw down our state pension, or as I like to consider it my saved wages paid in retirement, that we accumulate and provide for over a lifetime of work. In 2010 Fianna Fail and the Greens in Government did a deal with the ‘Troika’ that required us to increase our state pension age which was then 65. Remember the parties, Fianna Fail and the Greens.

Labour campaigned in the 2011 General Election against those changes, and much else (ssshhhh, don’t mention water charges)! When it was pointed out that this was part of the Troika bailout Labour were bullish – or was it another word beginning with ‘bull’ – in their ‘Frankfurt’s way or Labour’s way’ response. Post-election however they couldn’t wait to run out to the RDS and feign anguish at a special conference before leaping in to coalition to prop up their latest of many right wing Governments. Once in office of course it was quickly ‘Frankfurt’s way’ and then Minister Joan Burton quickly put the boot into those about to retire. As early as 15 June 2011 Burton was in the Dail espousing the:

‘fundamental principle that people need to participate in the workforce for longer and they need to contribute more towards their pensions if they are to achieve the income they expect or would like to have in retirement’.

Wow.

The 2011 election was in March, Labour campaigned against the increase in the pension age, but by June just three months later not only had they smashed one of many, many election pledges but they had made the smashing of it a ‘fundamental principle’. Despite the lies in the run up to the election, once in Government a Labour Minister who later went on to be the party leader and Tanaiste, and the current leader Brendan Howlin in no less influential an office than the Department of Public Expenditure, made making our retirement ages go up to 68 by 2028 a ‘fundamental principle’.

But wait. That is unless of course you were one of them. Because guess what? The changes don’t apply to Politicians! They are still allowed to get the state pension at age 65. In fact perhaps a related news story here is that we now have actual, factual and legislative proof of something many of us have long suspected, that based on Joan Burton’s own words it is clear that ‘fundamental principles’ don’t apply to Politicians.

What utter hypocrisy.

Fine Gael of course were, and are, delighted. Listen to Regina O’Doherty justifying this abuse of working people in the run up to the election. At the time Enda Kenny as Taoiseach was happy to give glib answers to a rightly irate opposition while the Labour Party went around doing his dirty work for him. If that lot stay in Government look forward to ever increasing retirement ages and lower net pensions in perpetuity.

So fast forward to this 2020 election campaign. Labour, the Greens and Fianna Fail who all did this haven’t been in Government for a while and they all want back there. They are looking for a way to get votes. SIPTU’S Michael Taft yesterday described, correctly, these pension changes as ‘a cynical move on low paid people that was highly regressive and socially damaging’.

These parties know this now. But what is worse is they knew it then too. They knew it when they did it, and they did it anyway. Because they don’t care what is regressive. They don’t care what is socially damaging. All they really care about is that they get elected, and they are even prepared to use campaigns against their own policies, their own decisions in Government, to get back into Government. So they can do it to us again. Why are they not being loudly called out on all of this in the media? Even at the Press Conference yesterday nobody dared say ‘Labour did this’. The Leader of Fianna Fail who sat at the cabinet table and put these changes on the agenda, with Green Party leader Eamon Ryan there too as a fellow Minister, are now cynically campaigning against the issue they created. There was an elephant in that room yesterday bigger than any elephant in the Phoenix Park. The entire media was represented there. And nobody said it. Nobody called it out.

I want to lend my support to the ‘STOP67’ Campaign, for what it’s worth. Well done SIPTU, ICTU, the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Age Action Ireland and Active Retirement Ireland. Let’s #STOP67. And then lets #STOP66. And then lets #RESTORE65.

And while we are at it what about if, for and once and for all, we stop being silent and failing to call out the insincerity, the hypocrisy, the theatrics and the pantomime politics. Surely as a country we are better than this.

Brendan Ogle

Senior Officer ROI