The Socialist Party has said it will be fighting its local election campaign on the “big national issues” and the impact they are having on communities throughout the country.
The party launched its election campaign in Dublin today where it announced it will field eleven candidates in four local authority areas: Fingal; Dublin South; Cork City and Drogheda.
The party has four elected councillors at present, Mick Murphy in Dublin South; Ruth Coppinger and Clare Daly in Fingal; and Mick Barry in Cork.
Former TD Joe Higgins, who lost his seat in Dublin West in 2007, will also be standing as a candidate for Fingal County Council.
The party’s campaign slogan is: A Campaigning alternative to establishment parties.
Cllr Murphy said that the campaign had more of a feel of a general election and said that the big national issues were what people on the doorstep were focused on.
Mr Higgins said that there was a very strong anti-government sentiment among the electorate. “There is a smouldering anger, a sullen anger and a real resentment,” he said. “We have a government that has been in power for 12 years. There is a small cabal of profiteers. Outrageously, the Government gave them such control over the economy that they were in a position to crash the economy when the bubble burst.”
Some eight of the party’s candidates were present at the conference at which the party defended its stance of not joining any controlling group on any local authority. Cllr Clare Daly said the party was prepared to wait until its viewpoint was the majority viewpoint. The party said they would work with like-minded politicians and parties.
The party’s main campaigning platform is to resist cuts by the Fianna Fail and Green Party coalition that it says will wreck local services. It is also calling on the electorate to punish the Government parties for what it says is their policy of “making ordinary people pay for the crisis.”
The party also said it would strongly oppose any attempt to reintroduce water charges.
Said Mr Higgins: “I have a warning to [the Minister for the Environment] John Gormley that if he tries to introduce water charges, there will be a massive public campaign to oppose it.”
In specific references to the cutbacks Cllr Ruth Coppinger said that the Fingal capital programme had been “savaged” by €55 million following prohibition on further funding from the development levy.
Cllr Daly pointed out that if councils failed to deliver infrastructure like schools and amenity facilities to communities in the course of a boom, then it would be a real battle to get it done now.
She said that the cuts that have been imposed by Government so far were “the tip of the iceberg”. She said that the Government planned to bring in water charges and other cuts that would affect ordinary people.