A new Republic to end recession

"The Republic guarantees the right of every citizen to an adequate share of the produce of the nations labour" - Democratic Programme of the first Dail Éireann, 1919.

Four hundred and fifty five thousand people are now unemployed in Ireland. Emigration has reached its highest levels in twenty years. The recession has engulfed all and we are told that the only possible return to a near prosperous state is by the introduction of stern cuts that will effect every single Irish citizen in the next budget.
Every citizen must pay to dig Ireland out.
But should every citizen pay? What are they paying for? And why should it be the duty of every citizen to pay now when many of them did not benefit from the prosperous years and have nothing left to show for their labour?
The Irish Republic dreamed of by Pearse and Connolly was based on equality. The 1919 Democratic Programme of the first Dail enshrined these principals as the pillars of the nation that would be won. Unfortunately successive Irish governments have forgotten those principals and have allowed the pillars to decay, and to collapse. Celtic Tiger Ireland knew no equality, only greed.



The first Dail

 The people who benefited from that greed are the ones who are now preparing to impose massive cuts and taxation upon the rest of us. They are the ones who blew more money than any Irish government in history. They are the ones who lied and cheated to stay in power, and sacrificed building for the future with auction style economics, constantly outbidding the opposition with spectacular rises in benefits. They are the ones who inflated our bubble until it had to burst. They are the ones to blame, the ones who should be paying now.
NOT YOU!
And what do they want you to pay for?
The government have so far pumped €33 billion into banks and building societies, who need money to pay back loans that they should never have accepted from international bondsmen. Your government wants you to pay for their corruption and stupidity.
The government has so far paid €13 billion for real estate loans that were once worth €27.2 billion. Your government wants you to pay for the greed of property tycoons and developers, many of whom are still rich and living the high life abroad.

The government are pushing these insane policies despite them being extremely unpopular with our citizens.
The fact is that if the government were to follow the programme of 1919, there would be no need for doomsday cuts.
It has been estimated that Ireland's offshore oil and gas reserves are worth €420 billion. To put that in perspective, its 840,000 times the cost of providing an extra acute hospital bed. Imagine what a competent, non corrupt government could do with such income? Imagine what a government that accepts the principal of 1919, that every citizen shall get "an adequate share of the produce of the nations labour", could do?
What has our current government done with these reserves?
Green Minister Eamon Ryan has continued to issue licences to multinationals on the terms laid down by Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern, who changed Irish law in 1987 and 1992 in favour of the multinationals.
These companies now have the right to own 100% of the oil and gas reserves that they find under Irish waters, and have to pay no royalties on it.

Fianna Fail, and previous Irish governments which included Fine Gael and Labour, believed it was their right to decide the fate of these oil and gas reserves. Never for a moment did they refer back to the principals of equality laid out in 1919. In fact, only one Irish political party believes in these principals. They are the only party who will oppose all cuts. They are Sinn Féin.

"To establish in the Republic a reign of social justice based on Irish Republicanism and socialist principals in accordance with the proclamation of the Republic of 1916 and the Democratic Programme of the first Dail Eireann in 1919 and by a just distribution and effective control of the nations wealth and resources, and to institute a system of government suited to the particular needs of the people" - Sinn Féin Constitution