McCarthy Report Deepens Divisions

McCarthy Report Creates Deeper Divisions
Dublin 32 County Sovereignty Movement
17/7/2009

The recent publication of the McCarthy Report (An Bord Snip Nua) concerning government cutbacks further illustrates the massive divisions which exist in Irish society. Those that are being penalised most are those who had least responsibility for creating the financial crisis. The report has been compiled by individuals who are so far removed from poverty line existence that they are completely blind to the impact their proposals will have on ordinary citizens. The complete absence of any semblance of social justice in the report underlines the fact that to the wealthy elite percentages and number crunching are more important than people.

It has been clear from the inception of the current economic crisis that the government’s strategy for its own survival would entail the fostering of divisions within the working class most notably between the public and private sectors. Frightened of the political potential a united working class would represent the government has now compounded these divisions with the publication of this report. The reckless bankers and greedy developers, the architects of the economic calamity, remain untouched, as workers taxes bail them out. The McCarthy Report, if unchallenged, will define social policy for the next fifty years, widening the inequality that already exists.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement calls for a unified republican socialist response to this development. We place as the cornerstone of this response the ending of all divisions amongst our people. This social struggle cannot take place independent of the issues of Partition or Europe. The injury caused by partition to the economic well being of Ireland’s people is immeasurable as vast resources have been squandered to maintain this affront to Irish democracy. Equally we cannot stand idly by whilst funding is removed from schools and hospitals when billions from our natural resources leave our shores via the Shell Corporation.

The upcoming Lisbon Referendum affords republicans and socialists an ideal platform to galvanise support against the political drift being championed by Brussels. There are those who will say that these issues have nothing to do with the referendum but the fingerprints of those who orchestrated the bailout of the banks are on the Lisbon Treaty also. The tentacles of the European Central Bank and the EU Commission stretched deeply into the economic policies of the Member States making them more than culpable for the widespread reckless practices. To argue now that the EU, as Lisbon would have it, should be viewed as our only economic hope is a sham. A new European Community needs to be fashioned on the basis of democracy, sovereign independence of its members and social justice. The first step in achieving this is the fashioning of a New Ireland.