Socialist Party Leaflet
May 2003
Fianna Fail/PD Government One Year On:
Lies... Broken Promises... Cutbacks... Job Losses - Time To Take Them On!

Save Our Services

THE HEALTH service is in crisis. All the establishment parties have realised this is a huge issue for working class people, but what are they going to do about it? Privatisation is the only answer they have on offer.

The Socialist Party is opposed to privatisation of our services. Services should be run for people, not profit. Examples in other countries have show that it leads to run down 'services' for which working class people are forced to pay through the nose. We cannot afford this to happen to our health service. What we need is funding so the 3,000 beds lost in the 1980s cuts can finally be restored, an end to the two-tier system and a democratisation of the health boards, to be run by reps of health workers, patients and the community rather than politicians who use it as a springboard for their political careers.

Why Privatisation Won't Work

The multi-storey car park built at Beaumont Hospital in 1998 created 230 parking spaces at a cost of €8.6 million. Howard Holdings Plc, a British company that was given significant tax breaks by McCreevy to build this car park, will gain the majority of revenue from the (expensive) parking levies until 2011. This has cost the public between 9 and 13 million euro, more than if the car park had been built as a public project!

HIGHER COSTS: Privatisation is supposed to "save money", but profits add to costs.

BAD JOBS: The main way privatisation saves money is through salary reductions and layoffs.

GREATER RISK: Privatisation is often accompanied by inadequate regulation and is based on the principle "profit before people".

LESS ACCESS FOR WORKING CLASS PEOPLE: No waivers, medical cards...

LOSS OF CONTROL: No accountability to the people who actually use the service, frequent examples of lack of proper equipment maintenance.

CORRUPTION & BRIBERY

Anti-Working Class Government

This is a hardline anti-working class government. Their policy of cutbacks, price increases and privatisation represents a major assault on working people and their families. Having received only crumbs from the table during the Celtic Tiger years, the working class are being made to pay now for the crisis in the economy. At the same time corporation tax (tax paid on profits) is a measly 12.5%, the lowest in Europe! This is a government for the rich and wealthy.

The government's foreign policy is just as bad. Having abandoned whatever pretence they ever had of defending "Irish neutrality" by promoting a second Nice Referendum, they got blood all over their hands by offering up Shannon Airport for George W. Bush's warplanes during the recent war for oil on Iraq

The Socialist Alternative

The Socialist Party is best known for our TD Joe Higgins who is a "workers' TD on a worker's wage", living on the average workers' wage and donating the rest of his salary to our campaign to change society.

We believe that the recent anti-war movement which brought 150,000 people onto the the streets in Ireland and 30 million internationally begins to show how this government and their policies can be fought.

We want to fight these policies not just with protest demonstrations but with strike action to stop this government in their tracks.

WE SAY:

No to cutbacks

No to privatisation and job losses

Full support to all workers, communities, etc who fight back and resist attacks

Build a mass socialist alternative to fight for the rights of all ordinary people

For a democratic socialist society which ends the rule of big business and the profiteers and prioritises the concerns of ordinary people

To Join the Socialist Party Click Here