Left-wing candidate declares 'war on rich and unfair taxes'

PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT:SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Before Profit candidates in the general election will "bring the war to the rich" and will lead a "huge struggle against major tax hikes", the party has said at its campaign launch.

Cllr Gino Kenny, a candidate in Dublin Mid West said “there’s an unbelievable amount of anger out there”.

“The IMF deal is a declaration of war against working people” who “have to pay this new universal social charge of up to 7 per cent which penalises ordinary workers”.

He said that “we will lead a PAYE revolt against the unfair tax system in this country and we’ll bring the war to the rich in this country, because outside or inside the Dáil the rich have to listen to the people of this country”.

Nine party candidates, five men and four women, will contest the election in Dublin, Wexford and Cork as part of the United Left Alliance, which includes the Socialist Party, Independents and Independent Labour.

Party policies include rejecting the EU-IMF deal, refusing to pay €4 billion this year to bondholders, and a 70 per cent income tax rate on individuals earning €100,000 or more.

Cllr Joan Collins, standing in Dublin South Central, said “this election should have been a referendum on the Finance Bill and people are very, very angry that that didn’t happen”.

People feel this Government has protected the wealthy but ordinary people are seeing their pay packets being “savaged”, she said.

A mortgage interest rate increase would mean “we could see another €180 being taken out of people’s pockets. We are being pauperised while the wealthy are not being touched.”

Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett, who came close to winning a seat in Dún Laoghaire in 2007, said people face a straightforward choice of whether or not to sacrifice the economic future of the country to satisfy the greed of bankers, speculators and bondholders.

The Government’s austerity package in the past two years had failed, he said.

Fine Gael and Labour had some tough talking and soundbites criticising the Government but clear they had no intention of reversing this agenda. They have signed up to the IMF-EU austerity package, he added.

Asked what bringing the war to the rich meant, Cllr Kenny said it meant civil disobedience. The RTÉ Prime Time document that exposed developers switching assets into their wives’ names was a “tipping point” for people. It was “rubbing everybody’s noses in it”, he said.

“Civil disobedience means strikes, people on marches, community marches.

“That doesn’t have to be violent. Violence doesn’t solve anything but civil disobedience means people start empowering themselves because we are being absolutely screwed and the IMF is sticking the dagger in.”

Cllr Boyd Barrett said that “as a result of the anger across Europe in Portugal, Spain and Greece and so on against the attempt to unload the costs of financial speculation on the backs of working people, even Angela Merkel is talking about burning the bondholders. She wasn’t doing that a while ago. She is now and that’s because of the pressure.”