Sir, – Last Saturday, more than 20,000 people turned up to a magnificent pre-budget anti-austerity demonstration in Dublin. A busload of about 40 people travelled from Co Kerry. They were called out by a coalition of resistance initiated by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. Key elements included the official union movement, the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) and the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope.
The CAHWT argues that all the cuts and charges introduced since 2008 have been forced on the Irish people by the EU, IMF and ECB with the willing support of government. This is so that the super- rich can get off scot-free while the rest of us who make up 99 per cent of the population continue to pay for their greed.
We argue that a return to gambling on the stock market is no solution to the crisis the Irish, EU and US economies are in and will only depress the living standards of working-class people even further. More than 1.8 million households have less than €100 to live on per month after they have paid for their basic needs. What is needed in Ireland is a government which breaks off all negotiations with the troika, reverses all cuts and charges and increases tax on the super-rich.
An increase of the effective tax rate of the wealthiest 5 per cent of the population to 50 per cent would raise €3 billion. Instead of cuts and charges we could be investing in education, health, housing and employment. What is needed to resist this neo-liberal onslaught is a general anti-austerity campaign spearheaded by CAHWT and rank and file trade union activists to force the union leadership to call a 24-hour general strike as has happened in Greece, Spain and elsewhere. – Yours, etc,