A large crowd gathered at Belfast’s International Wall on the Falls Road yesterday (02/10/2022) to voice their opposition to the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Attendees filed out on to the Falls Road for a white line picket stretching from the junction of Northumberland Street to Percy Street in the distance, before being addressed by Pól Torbóid of Lasair Dhearg, the Connolly Youth Movement’s Amy Rafferty, and Cailín McCaffery of People Before Profit.

The full text of the address from Pól Torbóid is as follows:

We’re gathered here today on the falls road in West Belfast. Like many other roads across this city and beyond, there are families here who are increasingly having to make some very difficult decisions.

You can walk a few hundred yards in any direction, and behind the closed doors of the poverty stricken communities that you would walk, there are families who either cannot afford a decent meal, or have no way to adequately heat their homes.

For the past few months now we have heard the words “cost of living crisis”, as though this is some sort of new development. So lest anything think that that is the case, here are some facts: Across both failed states in Ireland there are 1.1 million people living in poverty – 312,000 of them are children. We have 103,218 households waiting on a home. You might wonder why this is when there are 188,000 homes lying empty.

In the twenty six counties, twenty nine percent are living in fuel poverty. In the six counties, it is estimated that a massive fifty percent suffer the same fate, and this is predicted to rise to over seventy percent in 2023.

These figures were released by agencies north and south BEFORE this crisis. It is the context within which this supposed crisis has further developed. The poverty rates will get higher. Housing demand will exacerbate. Rents will go up. And government statistics agencies will record an increase in mortality rates as a result.

We echo the comments made by comrades in the Connolly Youth Movement. This is not a cost of living crisis. The crisis is Capitalism. 

If you need proof, just look at the income of the big energy companies as they continue to post record profits. They post these record profits because they continue to increase the prices you pay for electricity, gas, home heating oil and transport fuel. They say that the increases are needed to properly reflect the cost of supply on the international market. Yet, with continued increases in the cost to you, their bank accounts continue to swell. Something doesn’t add up.

BP Oil, one of Ireland’s biggest suppliers, DOUBLED its profits to $6.2bn this year. The pay of BP’s boss, Ireland’s Bernard Looney, ballooned to nearly £4.5m in 2021, after soaring energy prices transformed the company into a “cash machine”.

Co. Tyrone fuel giant LCC almost doubled its profits last year, up 87.5% from 2020 – and still increased prices. The almost Billion pound enterprise runs the local ‘Go’ service stations and imports coal through Belfast harbour. 

SSE Airtricity, a major supplier across all of Ireland, posted pre-tax profits of £3.5 billion this year, that’s an increase of 44 per cent. The company came under fire in recent years for an alleged lack of compassion in disconnecting customers.

Vermilion Energy’s revenues from Ireland’s Corrib gas field last year rose by 267%. That’s YOUR oil and gas. But it’s THEIR profits.

These figures are only a small fraction of the profits of all energy companies here. So if we are only paying for the increased costs of fuel on the ‘international market’ then why are the profits of these major businesses swelling to unseen amounts? 

Given that governments across Ireland have consistently passed laws favouring the profits of big businesses and the super rich, you could be forgiven for thinking that politicians were firmly in their pockets. Indeed, business and politics here is structured in such a way that they can do whatever they like without any consequences. Little wonder then that in the last decade a European Commission report found that 86% of those surveyed believed that corruption was endemic in Ireland. Across both the Six and Twenty Six County states, governments are firmly wedded to the economics of neoliberalism, consistently privatising public companies and the public workforce, favouring zero hour contracts and driving down wages in real terms. Ireland is truly open for business – and you are paying for it.

If you’re wondering what can be done about it, there’s plenty. Countries like Bolivia have introduced direct taxes on hydrocarbons in 2005, significantly increasing income for the public purse. The following year they nationalised the oil and gas sector, pushing the country’s revenue even higher. Billions can now be utilised for public spending, investment and expansion of local utilities. This money would otherwise have been smuggled off shore into tax havens and the pockets of the super rich, the CEO’s and boardrooms, just like here in Ireland. Instead, it is distributed across the economy and the local government utilises the income for public use, infrastructure investment, education, housing and more.

Lasair Dhearg believes that all natural resources should be brought under the control of a 32 County Socialist Republic in order that those resources be utilised for the common good. The wealth created from those resources should be invested in public services; our health system, housing, education, food provision and more – targeting the complete elimination of poverty and homelessness, and developing a society free from inequality. 

Both governments in Ireland have for generations now failed to fix the burning issues facing our people. It is only getting worse, and rather than deal with the core issue of capitalism and profiteering they call it a ‘cost of living’ crisis.

Nothing that any neo-liberal government does can fix this problem. It has always been here. They have turned communities into commodities and homes into assets. They are wedded to an economic system designed to suck every last drop of blood from every last one of us. 

Remember austerity? And before that, the recession? Now it’s the ‘cost of living crisis’. This crisis is just the precursor to an inevitable economic collapse now looming large over the horizon. Be under no illusion. This is a war between the working class and the super-rich. A war between us and them. And they are winning.

Like the last crisis, those who control the markets are already planning an outcome that will best suit their class.

We must now do the same. 

A spectre is haunting Ireland – it is the spectre of Socialist Republicanism. Nothing less than a Socialist Republic can fix this. So let’s fight for it.

Ar aghaidh linn le cheile. Bigi linn!