IRSP Win Shannon Seat

Rest of this page missing - if you have a complete copy of [email protected] and lend your copy for scanning Interestingly, a survey of opinion among businessmen, carried out by Business and Finance magazine during the election campaign, showed the vast majority of them supported Garret Fitzgerald for Taoiseach. In terms of stabilising the southern economy and putting the boot in: with no holds barred to the working class, FitzGerald was just what the Irish ruling class needed. An overall decrease of 600 million pounds in the budget deficit, thus improving the strength of the Irish punt, was his perspective. At the same time his budget , while adding 5 per cent immediately to the consumer pri ce index (such indirect taxation always hits the poorest members of society most) provided for no wealth or capital gains tax. The Labour Party, for its loyaltywas given the grand sum of 20 million pounds to ‘plough into’ its national development corporation, as a sop to the 146,000 unemployed. Hardly something to cause fear of the coming red revolution in standards; costing a minimum of 500 million pounds, without any guarantee of a constant pro-government vote.

Where Garret Fitzgerald is still hidebound by the strength of the ultra right in Fine Gael, Charlie Haughey made his decision along the lines of pragmatism.

Nationalisation was no longer-an ideological anathema, schemes of public works, environmental projects, extension of social services for the poor and the old were all agreed by Haughey within days. lt has been said by the media that this proves how ‘power crazy‘ Haughey is. For us, it shows what an unstable representative he makes for bourgeois class interests, and already the Cll and FUE have made noises about how unrealistic the package is, in view of Ireland’s massive budget deficit.

The SFP have certainly made a gain in getting 3 members elected to the Dail However they are forced to this issue of Socialist Republic please email cant role too. THE FIRST election to the new Shannon local government authority, the Town Commission, took place on Wednesday, March 10. This election was unusual for the considerable number of anti-imperialist candidates on the ballot and also in its proximity to the General Election which took place only three weeks before. General election trends came into play but ‘personalities’ played quite a signifiThe nine seats on the Town Commission were filled as follows: FF—5; FG—1; Lab—1; IRSP—1; Indep—1. The IRSP will be pleased with the election of Brigid Makowski, a-prominent local activist in Shannon and Co Clare. Brigid Makowski’s election comes after along period of being active around Republican and local was a personal vote and not an expression of confidence in the Labour Party as a defender of working class interests. On the positive side anti-imperialists candidates took almost 14% of the poll showing that a sizeable number of people are looking for an alternative to Fianna Fail and the Coalition. Sinn Fein received 6.8% of the first preferences and the IRSP 8.16%. The election of Brigid Makowski of the IRSP is the immediate result of the anti-imperialist vote.

For People’s Democracy, our first electoral intervention in County Clare, with Greg Duff, an active trade unionist as our candidate brought us 1% of the first preferences — 25 votes. While we are disappointed with the size of our vote and would like tt to be higher, we feel that Greg .did show how the Government’s approach to handling the economy