'Very significant' change possible in Irish politics

UNITED LEFT ALLIANCE:THE UNITED Left Alliance will establish a political party of the left if it has a "good result" in the election, according to Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins.

He said “mainstream media commentators” were predicting that the alliance could win at least six seats in the next Dáil, which would mean “the possibility of a very significant new development in Irish politics”.

The alliance planned to campaign against stealth taxes, including water charges and property taxes, which Mr Higgins claimed a new coalition government would begin to implement during its term of office. “These are just new ways of robbing people to pay off the speculators’ debts.”

However “with a good result, the United Left Alliance will be in position to launch a new political movement of the left, a new political party of the left that is an alternative to the entire establishment”.

Mr Higgins was speaking as some of the grouping of 20 candidates held their final rally at the statue of union leader James Larkin on O’Connell Street, Dublin,

People Before Profit councillor Joan Collins, a member of the alliance, said she knew she would be “battling for the last seat in Dublin South Central” and the choice was between herself and outgoing Fianna Fáil TD Michael Mulcahy.

“So we’re urging people to vote number one Joan Collins, United Left Alliance. It would be absolutely brilliant to be in the Dáil with six or seven other TDs who will provide principled opposition.”

Richard Boyd Barrett from People Before Profit, a councillor, believed the alliance could win between six and 10 seats. A candidate in Dún Laoghaire, he said they planned to provide “a real opposition to the agenda of cuts”.

The six potential seats are Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry in Cork North Central; Mr Higgins in Dublin West; Mr Boyd Barrett in Dún Laoghaire; Ms Collins in Dublin South Central; councillor and former TD Séamus Healy of the Unemployed Action Group in Tipperary South, and Socialist Party councillor Clare Daly in Dublin North.

Asked if they had overcome the historically tense relations between the Socialist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, of which Mr Boyd Barrett used to be a member, Mr Higgins said: “There is a very detailed and firm programme that has been agreed and published and is on our website, and a pledge for the candidates on the basic fundamentals of what we stand for.”

They had chosen the James Larkin statue because what Larkin represented “is that working people and the unemployed and pensioners and the young have to stand and fight or they will walk all over us”.