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Fine Gael and Labour desperate to pass Finance Bill

Date: Mon, 2011-01-24 19:05

Fine Gael and the Labour party are engaged in a desperate attempt to pass the Fianna Fail/Green party budget into law. A budget containing billions in cuts attacking the poorest sections of Irish society. A budget they loudly opposed only a few weeks ago.

Capitalist crisis & default - Can Ireland Go it Alone?

Date: Mon, 2011-01-24 11:46

As the scale of the debts loaded onto the Irish people became clear, the calls for defaulting became louder. The moral argument for default is certainly strong: why should Irish workers pay for the poor decisions of Irish and European capitalists? But justified though it may be, would defaulting cause more pain than gain?

The revolutionary message of the 'Friends of Durruti'

Date: Sun, 2011-01-23 14:02

The Spanish anarchist organization 'The Friends of Durruti' was formed by members of the CNT in 1937 in opposition to the collaboration of the CNT leadership in the government of Republican Spain. The first heavily censored issue of their paper 'Friend of the People' appeared just after the Mayday's in Barcelona, sections of it are reproduced for the first time in English in this pamphlet.  The Mayday defense of the revolution  in Barcelona was crushed at the cost of 500 lives, including the disappearance, torture and murder of key anarchist organisers by the stalinists.  The Friends of Durruti outlined an alternative path for Spanish anarchists, one intended to not only protect but to expand the revolution and bring it to victory.

Finance Bill Shows Property Investors still calling the shots

Date: Sun, 2011-01-23 12:59

While the soap opera of who will captain Fianna Fail’s sinking ship into the election is obsessed over by the media, the publication of the Finance Bill on Friday last has shown that for some at least it’s business as usual. Having announced in his Budget speech that Section 23 property tax reliefs were to be curtailed (not abolished – just curtailed!), Minister for Finance and wannabe FF leader, Brian Lenihan, has changed his mind.

People Power in Tunisia

Date: Sat, 2011-01-22 19:18

On Saturday December 18th last, the Tunisian police stopped Mohamed Bouaziz, an unemployed university graduate, and seized the hand cart of fruit and vegetables he had been selling to support himself and his family. Enraged by the injustice and despairing of any escape from destitution and starvation in Tunisia’s impoverished economy, increasingly ravaged by rising food prices, the young man set fire to himself in protest outside the town hall in Sidi Bouzid, 200km south-west of the capital Tunis. The young man was later to die in hospital.

The Budget & The Rich

Date: Sat, 2011-01-22 19:16

The government’s economic think-tank, the ESRI, wrote in the Irish Times in the aftermath of the budget that the measures taken over the past four years have been “strongly progressive” i.e. that they redistributed wealth from the rich to the poor. However, this is a somewhat convenient timeframe to apply and ignores the impacts of the measures announced in the 2011 budget.

Wikileaks: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?

Date: Sat, 2011-01-22 19:11

Wikileaks continues to make almost daily headlines.  Aside from the various revelations, there are also two widely told stories that are supposed to help us put these leaks into context.

Opinion poll shows 9 out of 10 want more liberal abortion law

Date: Thu, 2011-01-20 16:56

In the aftermath of the European court of Human Rights finding that the Irish state had violated the rights of a woman who was unable to get an abortion in Ireland a poll in the Sunday Times has confirmed that almost 9 out of every 10 people want abortion available in such cases. This result is a massive defeat for the well funded anti-choice movement that spent hundreds of thousands in an anti-choice advertising campaign in advance of the ruling.

An Board Pleanála gives Shell pipeline approval despite local resistance

Date: Thu, 2011-01-20 16:34

It is no great surprise that An Board Pleanála has granted permission for the final phase of the experimental Shell pipeline in North Mayo. The remaining 5 kilometers of pipe will be laid up the centre of Sruwaddacon Estuary, through Broadhaven bay, a place of great natural beauty and also an area which has been listed as a Special Area of Conservation [1] and a Special Protected Area for Birds,[2] along with being an E.U. protected Natural Heritage Area.[3] These sort of protections are now obviously meaningless when it comes up against multinationals like Shell.