Post-Covid: A new pandemic threatens the Irish working class.
It is already clear as we move into the latter months of 2021, slowly marching from the fog of the coronavirus crisis, that a new pandemic threatens the working class across Ireland; capitalism.
In the Occupied Six Counties we are seeing direct attacks on working class people’s incomes through the savage cut of £20 weekly to Universal Credit, attacks on household spending through an 18% increase in electricity prices and a 35% increase in gas prices, alongside soaring rent and food costs.
Speaking on the issue, Lasair Dhearg spokesperson Pól Torbóid said, “‘Official’ data released in August of this year from the ‘Department for Communities’ in the Six Counties showed a massive increase in food insecurity particularly in households with children, this data coupled with the above attacks on household income and spending shows that for many more this winter the choice will shockingly be between heating their homes or feeding themselves and their children.”
“Similarly, the rigged economy in the Twenty-Six county statelet has allowed the vulture funds to continue to buy large swathes of housing and land while homelessness rises to nightmarish levels.”
“The fight for fair jobs and employment for the working class goes on while Leinster House attempts to privatise local employment services further leading to poorer outcomes and support for working class people. Thousands of Donegal homes are crumbling before their owners eyes as a legacy of the cronyism and mismanagement that has plagued the statelet since its inception continues to this day.”
Pól said, “While working class people are still dealing with the emotional, mental and physical cost of the pandemic and in many ways the criminal handling of the crisis by the two rotten statelets, it’s clear that the transfer of public wealth continues to flow unabated into the hands of the super-rich and the friends of government.”
“Indeed, in the Twenty-Six Counties, the combined wealth of 9 billionaires saw their fortunes increase by an eye watering €3.28 billion in 2020 alone.”
“The term ‘winter of discontent’ may only be a strap line to newspaper editors or an insult thrown around Leinster House at present, but for the cash strapped families across Ireland, that winter has lasted for generations now, and is only getting colder, and much much darker.”
“The future is bleak unless we can collectively reset the economic conditions in Ireland and create a Thirty Two County Socialist Republic, truly capable of righting the wrongs of the current failed states on this island.”
ENDS
