ELECTION SPECIAL! Limerick East - Dublin Nth. Central: A Ghance to Fight Back!
Socialist Republic1982Elections and electoral tacticsEconomy, the EEC and EuropeTrade unions and workers' strugglesThe Southern state and its partiesPrisoners and the hunger strikesElections and electoral tacticsEconomy, the EEC and EuropeTrade unions and workers' strugglesThe Southern state and its partiesPrisoners and the hunger strikes
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JOE HARRINGTON, 34, is well-known and respected in the Limerick area for his record in fighting in defence of working people’s interests on the job and in the community. In the mid-seventies, Joe played a major part in winning union recognition at the Standard Pressed Steel (SPS) plant in Shannon, where the bosses had resisted workers’ self-organisation for 15 years. He is currently employed by the Mid-Western Health Board, and is a delegate to the ITGWU Limerick No. 2 Branch and that Branch’s delegate to the Limerick Council of Trade Unions.
Joe was involved in the struggle to save the Ferenka factory and served on the Workers Liaison Committee to save the plant.
Recently, Joe has been known as a leading activist in the campaign to save the lives of the H Block hunger strikers. He worked tirelessly on their behalf, organising support on the Streets, in community organisations, and in the trade unions. Joe stood in the last General Election and made ELECTIONS cost money, and this one is no exception. We estimate that we will need to raise £5,000 to mount an effective challenge to the major parties. All those who want to see Bernadette McAliskey and Joe Harrington elected must dig into their pockets and send us cash. Other useful items could be ink, paper, loudspeaking equipment, office supplies, etc., which will help us to organise the kind of election machine we need to get the message across. JOE HARRINGTON defence of the prisoners the No. 1 issue. Joe isalso well-known in the Southill area of Limerick as a community activist who campaigned against the lack of social facilities in the area. Joe is committed to the struggle for the rights of women and actively supported the setting up of the Limetick Family Planning Clinic.
Unlike Jim Kemmy, Joe is against the raising of the school entry age, the closing of the Tuam Sugar Factory, and supports the Polish workers against the ‘undemocratic military regime in that country. Limerick people will have seen Joe pushing for support and collecting signatures in the Trades Council and on the streets on behalf * of the Polish workers.
Joe Harrington puts the interests of the Irish people first, second and last, and will not be bought by a Fianna Fail or Coalition vote. By putting JOE HARRINGTON in Leinster House alongside BERNADETTE McALISKEY, you are giving the Irish people a fighting chance.
HARRINGTON, JOE — No. 1. WE ARE STANDING in this election in order to challenge the policies of the major parties and to begin to offer the Irish people a real alternative. Both ‘major parties offer the same diet of broken promises, austerity, unemployment, repression and collaboration with Britain. The Labour Party can be discounted as a party without principle with nothing to offer the Irish people.
The Coalition Budget, over which the election was called, was the last in a long line of harsh anti-worker measures; rapid inflation, unemployment, cuts in social services and living standards. The closure of the Tuam Sugar Factory was the first embarkation into closures in the public sector. The raising of the school entry age was the first attempt to slash the educational needs nf Irish children. The Coalition government also presided over the deaths of the Irish hunger strikers. Millions of pounds which could have been spent on the needs of the Irish people were cratic border. Collaboration between the Irish and British governments has increased and the Irish Army is being trained to take on a NATO role and so increase imperialist control of our lives.
Peoples Democracy is fighting this election because we want to offer the Irish people a real, honest, and fighting alternative to the policies of Fianna Fail and the Coalition. Our candidates Bernadette McAliskey (who we are sponsoring) in Dublin North Central, and Joe Harrington in Limerick East will bring the need for honest opposition to austerity and repression to the fore. The so-called ‘socialist’ independents Noel have kept the ramshackle right-wing Coalition on the road and are to blame just as much as Garrett FitzGerald, and Michael O’Leary over the last seven months.
than to continue the same basic policies in a different guise. Working people have no confidence in either of the major parties that is why we want to begin a fightback in the spent on maintaining Britain’s undemo-