Reduce Waste At Source

Health Crisis: Its a Matter of Life and Death

Make It Three Out of Three

by Stephen Boyd

FIANNA FAIL and the PDs used the abortion referendum as a bribe to keep the support of the four independents over the last five years and to stop pro-life candidates threatening their vote in the general election. The defeat of the referendum is the price they have to pay for this disgusting hypocrisy.

The government have been beaten on the Nice Treaty and the abortion referendum, now they should be kicked out of power at the general election. Bertie Ahern has led an administration that has tried in vain to portray itself as a stable, competent government that's dealing with society's social and economic problems. This is far from the truth.

They wasted the wealth that was created by working class people during the Celtic Tiger years. They gave their friends in big business massive tax cuts and another tax amnesty whilst introducing the bin tax all over the country. They have allowed the continued decline of the health service into its current state of crisis, with literally tens of thousands of people suffering and languishing on hospital waiting lists. They have assisted their speculator friends to make hundreds of millions in profits from housing whilst 140,000 wait in vain on public housing lists. They started the sell off of the public sector to multi-nationals with the Eircom fiasco, now they want to do the same with Aer Lingus and Aer Rianta.

This government has proven one thing during the last five years, that its raison d'etre is the pursuit of policies that will enrich the wealthy at the expense of the working class. At the general election it should be three strikes and you're out. The Socialist Party is standing in the general election to show that there is an alternative to the establishment parties of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and the PDs.

A mass party of the working class is needed to ensure that none of these gangsters continue in power. By voting for the Socialist Party, you can make a difference. Joe Higgins Socialist Party TD has played a major role in defending working class people since his election in 1997.

The Socialist Party will be fighting to ensure that Joe is re-elected and moreover that we at least double our representation by getting Socialist Party Councillor Clare Daly elected in Dublin North. By voting for the Socialist Party, you can ensure that there will be a real opposition in the next Dail.

Editorial: More Scandals

A MAJOR question mark now hangs over the decision to award a major contract for the running of the National Aquatic Centre at Abbotstown to Waterworld UK, a shelf company whose registered address is a solicitors office in London. The government is investing 62 million in the project and the 30 year contract is estimated to be worth nearly 2 million a year in profits.

Dormant accounts filed by Waterworld UK stated it had assets of only £4 sterling in May 2000, two months before the tendering process. The company also did not trade for two years prior to the agreement. Waterworld UK is owned by a comany registered in the British Virgin Islands, Ealing Trading Corp. They in turn have divested the rights to the benefits of the contract to Dublin Waterworld who were registered as a company five months after the tender process began.

Criteria set down for the selection of a company to run the complex, which will house the facilities for the swimming events of the Special Olympics in 2003, clearly state: It is considered essential that the management team of the organisation selected to run the centre has significant experience and a proven track record of managing aquatic centres of similar scale internationally.

It seems that the only experience that Waterworld UK have in this area is that some of those involved run the Tralee Aquadome, which is an oversized splash pool in comparison to the new centre. Fianna Fail would have us believe that corruption is a thing of the past. But the awarding of a contract involving massive investment, with the potential to make 60 million profits at today's costs to a company with assets of only £4 sterling with shady origins in an offshore tax haven, stinks of corruption.

This developing scandal is also a consequence of the involvement of private finance in public projects. The National Aquatic Centre should be built by and run by the state. The government should withdraw from its contract with Waterworld UK, and an independent public inquiry should be set up to investigate the shady dealings that led to this incredible situation.

Editorial: Northern Health Care Crisis

THE CRISIS in health care in Northern Ireland goes from bad to worse. 58,000 patients are on hospital waiting lists, the longest treatment queues in the whole of the European Union. Last year there were just over 50,000 on the waiting lists. Health Minister Bairbre de Brun then promised that she would reduce this to 48,000, a modest target by any standards. Instead of a fall there has been a rise of 7,288.

The numbers waiting for more than 12 months for cardiac surgery and for more than 18 months for other specialities has risen by 2,124. Asked about these disastrous figures, Bairbre de Brun displayed incredible complacency in stating that her target for the next year is to stop things getting worse by keeping the waiting lists as they are! The reality is that the health service needs emergency treatment, not halfhearted measures or more of the same.

There needs to be a short term emergency plan to tackle waiting lists and adequate funding must be provided to put this into operation. And then there needs to be a long term plan for the development of the health service to properly cater for need. Bairbre de Brun puts the whole blame for the crisis on the health cuts imposed by the Tories in the 1980s. It is true that a big part of the problem is down to the under funding caused by Maggie Thatcher's government. But people are looking to the Assembly to put the damage done by Thatcher right, not to use her as an excuse.

The reality is that the medium and longer-term plans being proposed by Bairbre de Brun do nothing to tackle the problem and will more likely make things worse. Private profiteers are milking the health service dry. Yet the Thatcherite policy of privatisation is being continued by Bairbre de Brun through the extensive use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). There is a chronic bed shortage in hospitals.

Yet Bairbre de Brun has cut bed capacity and through the Hayes proposals is planning the closure of hospitals in rural areas. Excuses won't do. The Executive is incapable of developing the health service we need. It is now up to the communities and unions to build a mass campaign to fight for an adequately resourced and democratically run health service.

Abortion Referendum: Government Defeated Again

by Kevin McLoughlin

THE GOVERNMENT'S attempt to rule out the possibility of suicide as a basis for abortion in the South has been defeated. Forget the spin doctoring, that is the simple fact of the matter. There are some issues relating to confusion around the referendum wording but this result does show a definite shift in public opinion since 1992.

This is a big blow to the so-called 'Pro-Life' Campaign and in particular to the Bishops, who strongly rowed in behind the government. Ironically, at the time of writing, a more vigorous battle is being waged over what the result means than many of the contending forces actually waged during the campaign. Such wrangling adds to the confusion and isn't accidental. For some, it is just another attempt to do what they failed to do in the campaign itself i.e. hold back legislation and social change.

The argument which we will undoubtedly hear from the political establishment is the need to proceed with caution, the country is split and so on. Prepare yourself for more attempts at political fudging and backsliding on the abortion issue. What this vote does is to give specific public endorsement to the key point in the Supreme Court ruling in the X Case. The Socialist Party demands that any new government must immediately legislate to allow abortion in this country where there is a threat to the life of a woman, including from the risk of suicide.

42% of people voted. 49.6% voted yes and 50.4% voted no. The last result to come in may have been in Galway West but the crucial point was that the main urban areas strongly rejected the proposal and this narrowly carried the day. The higher than average turnout in Dublin (47.5%) was crucial. The no majority in Dublin was by 100,000 votes 37% yes and 63% no.

William Binchy on the basis of this result stated that there is a clear 'pro-life' majority in this country! Not surprisingly, once again he flies in the face of reality. This vote if anything actually significantly understates the change that has taken place in attitudes on abortion. When it suits the powers that be, they say the Irish electorate is extremely sophisticated. Now we are told people were very confused. There was a certain confusion but that must not be overstated. The strong no vote in urban areas clearly indicated that the no vote was overwhelmingly against rowing back on abortion rights and in favour of a more liberal situation than has operated.

Again, the vast majority of those who voted yes did so accepting that where there is real and substantial risk to the life of a woman, abortion within this state should be provided for. On any reading of the figures, a significant majority of those who voted are opposed to any blanket ban on abortion. This is absolutely in line with the recent opinion polls where that specific question was posed. The Socialist Party believes that people should vote but what is indicated by the 58% of people who didn't vote? Why did this referendum not capture the focus of the majority in this society.

Certainly if these people were strongly anti-abortion they would have turned out and voted yes. A very large section of these people didn't vote because they had no enthusiasm for dealing with abortion through referendum (three in less than twenty years have made people weary) also there is a definite sentiment that it is up to a woman to decide. Many also accept the reality that 7,000 women travel to Britain each year for an abortion and voting in this referendum won't change that situation one iota. Legislating for abortion where there is a serious risk of suicide must now take place but that is only the beginning.

Official hypocrisy that ignores the reality of abortion in Ireland once the operation takes place in Britain must be ended. There are very serious medical, economic and social reasons why women choose to terminate a pregnancy. The basic rights of people belong to individual people themselves. The choices of women must be respected and legislation to provide for abortion through the Irish health service must be implemented. The only time this issue should be dealt with again through referendum is to take all reference to abortion out of the constitution, in particular the scrapping of the 1983 Amendment.

High Court Tells Fingal Council - Collect All Bins

By Michael Murphy

SOCIALIST PARTY councillors Clare Daly and Joe Higgins TD won a high court injunction against Fingal County Council on 1 March which forces the council to collect all bins regardless of whether the newly introduced bin tax is paid or not. Fingal Council had stated that they would refuse to collect any bin which did not have a "tag" attached indicating that the householder had paid their €5 or €3 weekly bin charge.

The Socialist Party had raised on a number of occasions with the county manager that refusal to collect the bins was an abdication of their responsibility to collect all waste as defined in the Waste Management Act. This was the viewpoint adopted by the Supreme Court in a case taken last November in regards to Cork. This is a big victory for the Fingal Anti Bin Tax Campaign.

The Council was all set to go for 4 March and this decision has dealt a real blow to their plans. The injunction will hold pending a judicial review, which will take place in the next number of weeks. If the court upholds that all bins must be collected then this will make the councils campaign a farce. They will literally have to try and take the name and addresses of every householder who doesn't have a tag and find other ways of penalising them.

On 11 March a proposal will come before the council to introduce an on the spot fine of €25 for anyone without a tag. Even if the fine is implemented, it will not become effective until 10 April. If they attempt to enforce it, we will urge residents to refuse to pay and if the Council wants to pursue them through the courts, we will have a legal team to defend everyone. The bin tax and the fine will be un-collectable.

Fingal County Manager Willie Soffe continues to ban Councillor Clare Daly from using the photocopying facilities in the council. Her code had been withdraw when it was "brought to the manager attention" that Councillor Daly was using council facilities to inform people of the new bin tax and encourage them to boycott the tax. He has refused to lift this ban until Councillor Daly pays €100 for material produced and give an undertaking not to produce anti bin tax material. This continued banning of a democratically elected councillor by an unelected bureaucrat is a completely unacceptable.

The Socialist party is currently seeking legal advice on the issue. Watch this space....

Bin Tax Campaign

By Diarmuid Naessens

A WHOLE series of successful public meetings have been held to counter the widely distributed letter from Dublin City Council which threatened non-payers with court action. Socialist Party members who are activists in the campaign have been involved in meetings in the Liberties, Drimnagh, Crumlin, Walkinstown, North Inner City, Cabra, East Wall, Phibsboro and Finglas.

Undoubtedly the letters were designed to intimidate people who may be nervous of being brought to court. As when such intimidation was tried during the water charges, it is inevitable that some people will reluctantly pay or part pay the charge. But what was a feature at all the meetings was the intensified anger that many residents felt about being threatened with court. A whole layer of people are more resolved than ever on this issue. Liam Lawlor was mentioned in a humorous but not a very complementary way at many of the meetings.

Some residents groups were provoked into contacting the campaign by the letters. The meeting in Finglas on 12 February clearly demonstrated the mood. 200 packed into the meeting room. How residents can successfully defy the courts was explained and gave confidence to those in attendance. There was a strong mood of anger and defiance. Over €700 was paid in on the night by well over 100 residents who joined the campaign.

With the election campaign due to start in about five weeks time, we need to make sure that the city based politicians and parties who imposed this tax will get it in the neck on the doorsteps. That's if they turn up on our doorsteps. Protests will be organised with the possibility of an all Dublin march in the middle of the election campaign. While it is unlikely that the City Council will actually summons people to court before the election, the campaign will be monitoring the situation closely.

Reduce Waste at Source!

SINCE 4 March we are charged 15 cent per plastic carrier bag. This measure is promoted as a major contribution to the protection of our environment. We are all concerned about the environment, and if 15 cent is going to do the trick, why not? Were it not for the fact that the government has cynically tried to play the environment card before to make us pay for essential public services like bin collection, we wouldn't have bothered to look up the details of this new law.

The small print in it is quite revealing: from now on all plastic bags will be charged, whether they are biodegradable or not! Why doesn't the government take the efficient route and bans production of non biodegradable bags in Ireland, forcing producers to change to environmentally-friendly products? The technology is there to do this. But no, rather than that they introduce legislation that puts the onus on the consumer, the people on the very end of the chain of waste production.

The packaging and advertising industry is a major contributor to the waste crisis in this country. You only have to look in your (paper) shopping bag to see the amount of useless boxes, wrapping etc that is forced upon us to make products look more than they are. We are waste receivers, not waste producers. Yet working class people are the ones that are targeted to couch up, be it through bin charges, charges on bags, or incinerators in our neighbourhoods.

The only waste management industry that is environmentally friendly, is based on reducing waste at source - i.e. taking on big business to change production methods. 85% of all waste that is presently produced is recyclable. The other 15% can be replaced by more environmentally friendly materials. But in order to tackle this issue, you need a government that is not tied to big business by 1,000 brown (paper?) envelopes...

Health Crisis: It's a Matter of Life and Death

A FOUR-YEAR old waited over a year to see an ear specialist. In that time an entirely preventable condition worsened, to such an extent he now has a speech difficulty. He is now on a waiting list for a speech therapist.

Despite the 'Celtic Tiger' boom men in Ireland die one year below the EU average. For women it is two years. This was not the case 20 years ago. It is a direct consequence of having one of the worst and most underfunded health services in the OECD. That this is the situation after ten years of unprecedented boom is a disgrace.

The parties who have all been in power for the last 20 years, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and the PDs, who actively encouraged the two-tier health service, cannot be trusted to resolve this crisis. They are responsible for the fact that if you can, you get treated, if you can't, you wait. A senior official in the Department of Health says that the crisis is due to decades of underfunding and the cuts in the 1980s which "literally hacked of bits of the service".

They say that another 2,000 hospital beds are needed to end the waiting lists. In the 1980s 3,000 beds were cut. This started under the Fine Gael/Labour coalition and was then stepped up under the Haughey/PD government. To replace those beds now at a cost of €510,000 per bed would require an investment of €1.52 billion. That would just take us back to the situation that existed 20 years ago! There is also the issue of investment to keep equipment up to date and working, plus an estimated shortage of 800 consultants and at least 1,300 nurses. Last year alone some 3,000 nursing staffed resigned, showing the crisis of morale, and the effects of low pay and bad working conditions.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) says that until this situation is dealt with there will be no improvement in the service. The INO membership have voted by over 95% for industrial action over these conditions and overcrowding for patients. There is a massive crisis affecting all levels of health care provision. 30,000 people are on the public hospital waiting lists, and this figure doesn't include those who are waiting for less than three months. You now have to wait an average of nine to twelve months, it's no wonder that over 50% of people have private insurance cover because it's the only way to get specialist or decent hospital care. Another important factor is the domination of private health care.

Private health dominates the GP system, dental care and the consultancy system in public hospitals. Also the multi-national drugs and medical supply companies make obscene profits through huge over-charging. Health care in this country is in need of a complete overhaul. GP and dental services should be free to all through an extensive state run clinic system. Public hospitals should be properly funded to prove a quick, quality service to all and there should be no provision in the public health sector for private medicine. A state owned pharmaceutical company would be able to provide the majority of the basic needs at a fraction of the cost now being charged by the multi nationals. We need a public health service that is run for the needs of those who are ill and not those who want to make profits.

Capitalist society creates the environmental and social conditions that are to blame for most of the ill health in our so-called modern societies. The Socialist Party is campaigning for a society where the emphasis should be to prevent ill health or to deal with ill health at the primary and community level. This means ensuring every citizen has the means to properly feed and cloth themselves and has good housing with adequate heating in the winter months. This means ending low pay and low social welfare payments.

Environmental pollution by big business should be tackled. Incineration of waste should be banned. The problem of landfill dumps, where 95% of what goes into them is from business, construction and agriculture should be dealt with bt a national plan of reduction at source, separation and recycling. A major factor in ill health today is stress; the majority of it work related due to the drive by big business to make people work harder in paired down workforces with less rights and poorer working conditions.

A socialist health programme would emphasise and defend workers' rights against this onslaught.

* For a free and comprehensive health service for all.
* Emergency action and investment in the public health system to end hospital waiting lists.
* For clinics in all areas to provide primary medical services.
* End the profiteering in health care and the drug industry.

93% OF the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) members working in accident and emergency (A&E) departments and 95% of SIPTU A&E nurses have voted to take strike action because of overcrowding and workload problems in the South's 46 A&E departments.

Strike action will begin with a two hour stoppage on Wednesday 13 March between 12 midday and 2.00pm. This will be followed by a three hour stoppage on 20 March, and weekly stoppages from then on. A&E nurses will also commence a work to rule, withdrawing from clerical and administrative duties together with their withdrawal from extended role duties, for example taking ECGs and administration of IV therapy.

A&E nurses have been forced into taking strike action because the government has refused to deal with a crisis which means that nurses have to work in a 'war zone type atmosphere'. Nurses face daily chronic overcrowding, excessive volumes of work and serious security problems in these departments which result in nurses being physically assaulted and verbally abused. Minister for Health, Michael Martin, attempted to avert the strike action by announcing the setting up of an A&E forum at which he was calling upon the chief executive of each health board to meet the nurses unions to discuss the crisis.

However, this has been dismissed by the nurses as nothing more than a talking shop and they want immediate action not just words and promises of talks. In October 1999, 28,000 nurses took part in a nine day strike which forced the government to make substantial improvements in pay and promotions for nurses. But the full time officials in the INO and SIPTU lacked the resolve to see the dispute through.

Combined with ICTU's effective backing of the government, it resulted in a compromise deal. This deal left many of the core issues of that dispute unresolved. The current dispute in the A&E departments is one of those unresolved issues. A&E nurses have clearly stated that they have had enough by their massive vote for strike action. They not only have to stand up to the government on this issue but they must also be vigilant that another compromise deal isn't forced on them by their union leaders that leaves them and their patients still facing a crisis.

MORE THAN any other issue, young people have a critical role in combating the rise in discrimination and prejudice against asylum seekers and immigrants. If you don't want to live in a country with serious racial tension, where the establishment play Irish people off against refugees and visa versa - now is the time to get active with Socialist Youth.

Socialist Youth's is absolutely anti-racist. We are pro-working class and because of that we are pro-asylum seekers. But we accept that as of now there is quite a strong anti-refugee sentiment amongst a minority of working class people. Why is this and where does it come from? And what can we do about it? Some people are just racist and they should be firmly opposed.

Others have grown up in a completely white country and can feel threatened when the numbers of people of a different colour or culture begin to grow. These fears can be overcome through time. But in general the anti-refugee feeling, particularly amongst people who are hard pressed economically, is based on a belief that refugees are being looked after while they have been abandoned. Anyone who wants to really cut across anti-refugee sentiment and the potential for racism must deal with this reality. The point is that this feeling is half true.

Whole sections of people have been abandoned. If the real needs of Irish people were being met by the system on things like decent jobs, facilities, health and housing, anti-refugee sentiment would not be a significant factor. People would not feel they are competing with refugees for scarce resources and the vast majority would have a more sympathetic and generous attitude.

That's why Socialist Youth points out it is the capitalist system and its political representatives that have abandoned us and is responsible for the problems we face and not refugees. Some of these politicians are in fact consciously stoking up anti-refugee attitudes in order to cover up their sell-out by blaming refugees. They hope to get elected on the basis of sowing confusion and standing on the desperation of ordinary people.

Socialist Youth wants to expose the real record of these politicians, we want to expose the profit system they represent. That is the only way we can expose their racist con trick and cut across anti-refugee and racist ideas.

RECENT FIGURES released by Stormont show that Northern Ireland Assembly members claimed almost £4m in expenses for the year ended March 2000. At an average of £36,232.51 for the 108 members, this works out at a scandalous three times the average wage of £12,000 for the majority of workers and a far cry from the £8954.40 you can expect to receive if you are on the minimum wage.

This assumes you are able to get the minimum wage at all as many employers play whatever tricks they can to get out of paying it. Last year, the Stormont government were shamed into passing the motion put forward by the Socialist Party asking for the minimum wage to be increased from £4.10 an hour to £5 an hour. However, since this, they have done nothing to push the motion through or even implement it within their own employees. With the rise in living costs, the Socialist Party are now demanding an increase of the minimum wage to £6 an hour.

This is still substantially less than the £8.64 an hour recommended by Europe. Adding the expenses claimed to the basic wage that members already receive of £31,002 with more for Executive Ministers and Committee members means that members could receive more than £78,000 in one year. With the number of times the Assembly has been suspended and time wasted in arguments over trivia, you can judge for yourself if Assembly members are "worth the money".

This is the first time that Stormont has released figures to the public and it is no wonder that Assembly members are not very happy about it. The electorate can now see for themselves the scandalous amount of money that is wasted whilst the members have done nothing to improve the living conditions of the ordinary people they were voted in by.

Socialist Party members who stand in elections always give a commitment to take only a worker's wage. Joe Higgins who is a Socialist Party TD for Dublin West does this. The rest of his salary and allowances is donated to the party and to working class campaigns. New Assembly elections are due next June. We need a working class challenge to make sure that the same old faces do not climb back on board the sectarian gravy train.

THE ASSEMBLY is currently budget plans for the next three years. The proposals outlined by the new Finance Minister, the SDLP's Sean Farren, are for a greater use of private finance through so-called "Public Private Partnerships" (PPP) and Private Finance Initiatives (PFI). The plans allow for a possible deficit of nearly £5 billion, a huge hole that has been left mainly for private companies to fill.

There is cross party support, at least among the main Assembly parties, for the selling off of more and more parts of the public sector to the private sector. Francie Molloy, Sinn Fein Chairman of the Finance Committee, commented on the £5 billion black hole: "The Government has promoted the use of the private sector to improve hospitals, schools and other services.

The Committee found that public-private partnerships can help but should be approached with caution..." The truth is that privatisation does not help. It leads to worse services and costs the public more. Recent experience across the public sector in Northern Ireland bears this out. PFI has been extensively introduced in the building of FE Colleges, such as the new Millfield College in Belfast.

Across the FE sector there is now a major crisis with some colleges facing bankruptcy and possible closure. Lisburn Tech is bankrupt. Derry Tech last year handed over part of its buildings to a private consortium, NorthWin, a group based mainly around the Cement Roadstone Company. The Tech is now £1.5 million in debt, classes are threatened and workers employed by NorthWin are facing cuts in pay and conditions. Social Security Staff have for years being resisting the attempt to privatise their computer software system under the EISIS project.

This means handing the system of managing benefits to a private company, EDS, with immediate job losses and perhaps 2,000 jobs going in the longer term. Opposition from NIPSA members has so far failed to stop this scheme, but there is now the possibility that the incompetence and inefficiency of the private contractors may mean that the programme will have to be scrapped. Test runs of their new system have shown that it just doesn't work and they have been given one last chance to get it right. PFI and other private finance schemes will mean an erosion of public services.

Meanwhile the state is locked into deals to pay these companies for 25 or 35 years. According to one estimate the government in Britain will have to pay £415 million to cover existing PFI deals. This could mean increased taxes, cuts in other services or more charges - just so the profiteers get their money. The privatisation madness must be stopped. We need properly funded public services that are democratically run - and we need to build a political party here that will fight for this.

IT'S TIME to start sorting out your summer holidays. Perhaps you might want to go abroad, what about Spain, Italy, or even New York? A holiday abroad will cost a few pounds/euros, so you'll have to start saving or get a loan arranged. That's true, but not if you work for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

Do you fancy getting put up in a good hotel in New York? You do! What about a good lunch with a few friends, at £130 each, with bottles of wine at £40 a go. (a bit expensive for me) In the hotel do you fancy a few in room movies, the use of the spa facilities, or even cigarettes. If you want all this, don't bother saving, just get a job with the NI Tourist Board and they'll pay for it all.

A recent audit office report revealed all this, and more. Just in case the holiday is not enough to persuade you to stay with the Tourist Board, perhaps you can leave. They might throw a £4,856 "going away do" as they did for Ian Henderson, a senior official. When the managers do leave, don't worry for them, they can get a bit of consultancy work. After his £5,000 lunch, Henderson got £34,000 for 120 days "work", that's only £280 a day.

Surely all NI Tourist Board staff can get these wages! All they have to do is ask, yeah! In the South there seems to be a brown envelope culture among some people. In the North it's a bit more upmarket, it's a corporate credit card scam. But sure, they deserve a break all the way to the dole queue.

THE WHOLE issue of local authorities charging for domestic refuse collection is likely to feature as an important issue in the forthcoming general election. Bin charges are a new local taxation by another name.

In the recent Budget, the Minister for Finance reduced corporation tax on big business to 16% at a cost of €329 million in a full year. He also reduced the bosses' PRSI at a cost to the Exchequer of €347 million in a full year.

That is a total of €676 million (£532 million in old money). This would fund massive programmes of waste reduction, reuse and recycling. But Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats, backed up by Fine Gael and in some cases by so-called independent or community Councillors, prefer to hit the ordinary working people yet again with a bin tax.

Clearly, the whole question of waste is building up to be a major crisis situation. Responsibility for this rests with successive governments that have not taken effective action to prepare for the problems that are now developing. Particularly, there has been no effective legislation to compel manufacturers and retailers to drastically reduce waste at source, especially in the area of packaging. Neither has there been investment to any effective degree in regard to major programmes of reuse and recycling of waste.

No effective action has been taken to force producers to take responsibility for the products they create that will eventually become waste. For example, refrigerators and other durable goods should be collected and recycled by the producer. Similarly, pollutant plastics should be banned and replaced by bio-degradable packaging. There should be major programmes of education of all sections of society as to how waste can be minimized and recycled. There should also be facilities made available for householders to compost their organic waste in a way that is hygienic and doesn't bring any problems of nuisance to the householder or any of their neighbours.

There is, of course, a serious agenda to privatize waste collection right around the country. This is what the EU wants. Accepting bin taxes brings the prospect of privatisation closer. The county councils will then feel that they can hand the system over to private contractors and wash their hands of it. However, what happens when the service is privatized has been graphically demonstrated in recent months. In Ashbourne, Co. Meath, for example, domestic bin charges in 2001 were €236 (£186).

However, for the first six months of 2002, the private company is demanding a fee of €175 (£137). This means a gigantic increase of almost €120 in one year. This situation is being repeated in different areas. Clearly, what is called for is a comprehensive and effective waste management strategy. This requires taking on vested interests in big business and agriculture. It requires also substantial investment from the massive taxation that ordinary people pay to the Exchequer. It requires discussion within communities and the democratic involvement of both communities and householders in putting the answers in place.

The campaign against the bin tax in the greater Dublin area and throughout the country must continue to highlight these issues. We must also make sure that the right wing political parties are challenged on this issue when they arrive on peoples doors looking for votes in the general election. Our demand for the abolition of the bin tax is just the first step in our campaign for a comprehensive and environmentally sound waste management policy.

TO A superficial observer the struggle of the Argentinean masses against the government's economic mismanagement has abated. However, the evidence from the ground tells a different story. None of the problems that brought people to the streets in the first place have gone away. It is true that the scale and frequency of the protests has dipped since the end of 2001.

However, what is in fact taking place is that the most conscious organisers in the communities and workplaces are taking stock of the situation and discussing a way forward. The forum for these discussions are various neighbourhood and rank and file assemblies who have played the key role in organising the protests and are now endeavouring to work out a plan of action and a programme of demands.

A delegate conference of the neighbourhood assemblies in Buenos Aires met in February to this end. There is widespread recognition that while the protests have served to mobilise people and make them aware of their own potential and caused a partial retreat on the part of the regime and the IMF, that this in itself won't effect permanent change. A member of the Committee for a Workers' International was invited to address this gathering.

The point we made is that the assemblies are highly representative bodies of workers, unemployed and the ruined middle classes. They are made up of the most respected and capable activists. The ruling class has clearly demonstrated its inability to rule. This is borne out by the five presidents in quick succession, the flight of capital and the massive 'blank vote' in the last elections. All these factors taken together lead to the conclusion the protests and strikes should continue but that side by side with this the assemblies have to take on responsibility themselves for the running of affairs in the interests of ordinary people.

This begins with the distribution of food and the organisation of services, which in the case of education is already taking place. Factory committees should be established that would elect delegates to the 'assembly of pickets', who in turn need to link up with the local neighboorhood assemblies. This would lay the basis for the working class to take over the means of production in the interests of ordinary people. An appeal also needs to go out to the ranks of the army to organise their own assemblies and accept the legitimacy of the neighbourhood and workplace assemblies.

This would in effect begin the process towards socialist change. Past revolutionary situations show that unless a programme for socialist change is struggled for within the working class and its organisations the unions, co-ops and neighbourhood assemblies private property and the levers of power will remain in the hands of the ruling class and they will weather the 'storm'.

International Women's Day

CWI Statement

MARCH 8TH, International Women's Day, this year should be celebrated to the sound of the cacerolazo - empty pans and lids being clashed noisily together. It is the sound of protest in Argentina - especially of Argentinian women - expressing anger against empty stomachs and no trust in those at the top. Oppressed people across the world have received an inspiring message from Argentina. A mass movement was able to remove five presidents from power in just two weeks!

Argentina shows to working and poor people that the power of the masses can move mountains. The greetings from the Committee for a Workers' International to all workers in struggle on International Women's Day emphasises this strength, acknowledges women's role in the struggle and calls for mobilisation behind women's call for justice. One of the most obvious trends in society during the last decades has been the influx of women into the labour force. Wage earning has given women the basis for a degree of economic independence and the opportunity to raise their voices.

Will this be changed in the recession? Economic collapse in the ex Stalinist countries (the bureaucratically-run state-owned economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) hit women hardest and meant a lower share of women in the workforce. The economic crisis in Latin America during the 1980s did not end that way. It is true that women also lost their jobs, but the new jobs went to an even greater extent to women, to new groups of women, to younger women who were paid even less, something which compelled even more members of workers' families into wage labour. This trend has been very evident during the years of economic growth.

Two thirds of the new jobs in the EU between 1994 and 1999 went to women. However, the same share of the new jobs were part-time. In the EU, 80 per cent of part-time workers are women, and as for full-time jobs, women's share is one third. The new women's jobs are low-paid, insecure, part-time jobs with lower hourly wages and lower pensions. It is mostly women who are made to pay for insufficient public child care. More women than ever are regarded as poor. The new recession will be accompanied by new cuts in social spending.

The military budget in the USA already means cuts in health care. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and especially the common budgetary policies of the European Monetary Union are trying to implement strict 'financial discipline'. Rich families will be able to buy private services for the care of children, old and ill people, but others must fight to defend their already modest rights. Workers in Europe will have to use the Argentinian women's methods and declare, "Not another crisis financed by the doubling of women's efforts". Sweden is statistically the most equal country in the world, but the CWI in Sweden does not believe that gender oppression can be abolished under capitalism.

For a couple of decades the economy was reformed to the advantage of workers and women. The public sector expanded strongly, which among other things led to one year's parental leave and the possibility of six years' public childcare for all children. These welfare measures were, however, conditional and an exception under capitalism. Since the mid-1980s, there have been continuous cuts in social services even during the last few years of economic growth and sky-rocketing profits and with the Social Democratic Party in office. These have repeatedly hit women hardest. They, their children and immigrants have been affected most of all. The blood of numerous women is found on the hands of top politicians all over the world.

The number of deaths due to the bombs over Afghanistan dropped by George W. Bush and his brother-in-arms Tony Blair will probably never be known. For twenty years Afghan women suffered through war and the harshest of gender apartheid without any reaction from the West. The rate of illiteracy among Afghan girls is 90 per cent. As women do not get health care, 45 women die every day from pregnancy-related causes and Afghanistan also has the highest infant mortality rate in the world. After the terrorist attack on September 11, the Taliban oppression of women was used by Bush as part of the justification for bombing the country. But the war also created a new wave of refugees, of which the overwhelming majority are children and women. The new regime of the Northern Alliance and warlords means that power is in the hands of militiamen who during previous wars have carried out mass rape.

This year, aid organisations report increased numbers of rapes and other crimes. Liberation for Afghan women will not firstly be measured in cast-off burqas but in access to food, houses and jobs. Imperialism does not only kill women through war. Progress in the field of medicine and health care is often held up as demonstrating that human development is going in the right direction. The terrible truth is, however, that the increased poverty of the last twenty years has led to an increase in maternity deaths. This amounts to nothing less than mass murder and is shrouded in silence. Every day in the world, the number of deaths from child-birth are the equivalent of six jumbo jets full of people crashing with no survivors!

A mother's right to life is a class issue. A woman in Africa is subject to a 1 in 20 risk of dying in childbirth while, for a woman in an industrialized country, it is 1 in 20,000. In Africa four times as much is spent on paying off interest and loans to banks than on health care! A society in decline tends to turn back the clock and undermine any social and political gains that have been made through struggle. Exploitation, oppression and gender discrimination become more ruthless and reinforce the structure of power in society. The restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the CIS has impoverished 100 million people. In Russia these economic changes have resulted in the removal of large numbers of women from the workforce. Their financial independence and status in the family and society have been undermined and the process has been accompanied by a horrific increase in domestic violence, in prostitution and in pornography. The world is richer than ever, but the gulf between rich and poor is also greater than ever before.

Multinational corporations drive the costs of production down to a minimum through the use of sub-contractors who impose slave wages and atrocious working conditions. This is often done in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) established in many 'third world' countries where companies are exempted from taxation and given other lucrative incentives to move in and exploit local labour. Women make up 80 per cent of workers in these zones. Most of these zones and also the worst are found in China. According to the ILO, 18 million EPZ workers out of a total of 27 million worldwide are in China. Production costs in China are only a third of those even of India. This means harsh competition since trade restrictions were removed from 400 products in the year 2000. This was done in the name of 'free trade' as dictated by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Competition, not only from China but also from the Philippines and Bangladesh, has caused a severe crisis in all export industries but particularly in textile manufacturing which is carried out largely by women workers. Since 1995 a total of 70,000 textile factories - more than 40 percent of the total - have been closed down. On top of all this is a sharp decline in the 'out-sourcing' of production to the home, which cuts off another avenue for women to earn at least a meagre income while staying in the home with their dependents. The full extent and implications of all this are as yet impossible to grasp. Another target of the anti-capitalists and socialists is financial speculation - the casino economy. Globalisation is making capitalism even more parasitic. Anything is welcome on the inflated stock exchange, even companies producing and distributing pornography.

Capitalism is, as Karl Marx saw long ago, reducing everything to commodities. The sex trade has become an integrated part of the economy. It was no coincidence that the sex industry was the first to recover after the economic crisis in South East Asia of 1997-1998. Prostitutes in the cities of Thailand send the equivalent of 300 million dollars to their families in the country each year, which is a far greater sum than any of the 'development' programmes financed by the government. In Western Europe, each year half a million women are literally traded. In Germany, there are more women working as prostitutes than as teachers! In the 35 countries where the CWI has parties, sections or groups, we have always taken part in the struggle of working women.

"Organise and fight back!" was the motto of the socialist pioneers and thinkers of the early workers' movement such as Eleanor Marx and Rosa Luxemburg. We have to say the same. Members of the CWI have been involved in many campaigns against the low pay scandal and to win, in particular, female workers to the trade union movement. At the same time we struggle to transform the trade unions into fighting and democratic organisations, which are a precondition for the unions to be independent - free from the influence of the bosses and the capitalist state - and able to fight against poverty wages, against compulsory part-time work, against privatisation and closures, and for a shortened working week.

We are fighting locally and nationally against downsizing in education, health care and social security, together with those who work in those services or use them. We have been able to stop privatisation of water supplies and the charging of water fees. Together with hundreds of thousands of others we take part in mass protests against war, environmental destruction and capitalism. Ultimately it is the united struggle of working class women and men, drawing in sections of the middle class, that can overthrow capitalism and lay the basis for a new society with the potential for equality - in short, a socialist society. Women comprise 70 per cent of the world's poor and two thirds of women's work is unpaid. This is such a fundamental part of class society, of the economy and power, that justice is impossible to achieve without a revolutionary transformation.

The CWI is fighting for a global socialist society where fundamental material rights - jobs, housing, provision of electricity and water, education, child care and so on - would create the foundations for a truly effective struggle against sexism and gender roles. There are fabulous amounts of resources today on a world scale, but those resources are in the hands of a wealthy elite. In order to acquire democratic control of these resources big corporations and banks have to be brought into public ownership. Such a democratic socialist world would have nothing in common with the Stalinist dictatorships in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Socialism is about ordinary women and men having real control over their lives, at every level. By releasing resources it would provide for the economic liberation of women. Based on cooperation and the elimination of inequalities of power and wealth, it would lay the basis for an end to sexual and cultural oppression of women.

Women in Ireland and across the world: the reality

* Women are paid 25% (in the North) to 20% (in the South) less than their male colleagues
for equal work
* Ireland and Britain have the most expensive childcare in Europe - taking up 20% of average wages compared to 8% in the EU as a whole
* single parents are the most impoverished group in Irish society
* 80% of part-time workers in the EU are women; the overwhelming majority of low paid workers are women
* women comprise 70% of the world's poor
* 5.5 million women are forced to have back street abortions every year
* two thirds of women's work on a world scale is unpaid

Middle East crisis escalates

Ariel Gottlieb, a member of Maavak Sotzialisti (Socialist Struggle) the Israel/Palestine section of the Committee for a Workers' International, the international socialist organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated, reports on recent developments from Jerusalem.

THE MIDDLE East peace process is dead. A deadly spiral of violence has killed over 1,000 Palestinians and 260 Israelis since October 2000. Sharon's government is clearly at a loss as to the way out of this mess. Sharon himself and most of his cabinet do not believe in any political arrangements or negotiations before the Palestinian will to fight is crushed militarily.

In his own words: The Palestinians must be dealt a heavy blow and we need to inflict heavy casualties on them, to make it clear that they will achieve nothing with terrorism. If they do not see clearly that they have been defeated, we will not be able to return to the necessary negotiations. Arafat losing control The increasing military pressure by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), though far from achieving its authors' aims, is causing some serious changes in the balance of forces within Palestinian society.

Arafat, grounded in his Ramallah bureau guarded by Israeli tanks, retains an almost purely symbolic leadership status. Setting the tone are the different armed organisations independent of Arafat's direct control, competing with each other for influence in the various regions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Despite the public show of unity between all Palestinian groups fighting against the common oppressors, important debates are raging between and within the organisations as to the strategy and tactics for the Intifada.

One wing of Fatah, The Brigades of Al-Aqsa Martyrs, is adopting the methods of suicide missions inside Israel proper, while the West Bank leader of Fatah's youth wing Tanzeem, Maruan Barghouti, calls for the struggle to be limited to fighting against the IDF and settlers, linked with a demand for an Israeli withdrawal to the 67 border. None of these organisations are democratically accountable to the masses, but they all depend on popular (mostly passive) support, and the debates at the top are a distorted reflection of the contradictory trends in the mass movement.

Rifts in Israeli society
The Sharon government's seemingly impregnable popularity has been dented by the worsening crisis. Its approval rating, standing firm at around 70% for a long period, has gone down to 50%. This still high figure should be seen in the context of a lack of any viable mass alternative. Support leaving the government has gone both ways, with some layers outflanking it from the right, demanding more brutal repression and harsher military solutions. The other side of the coin is the reappearance of the liberal left, around the Peace Now extra-parliamentary movement and the liberal-reformist Meretz party on the streets, with significant rallies of 10,000 or so in Tel Aviv.

Refuseniks
Added to this is the important movement of the refuseniks, reserve combat officers and soldiers signing the Combatant Letter stating their refusal to serve in the occupied territories. This letter was first published by 50 signatories about two months ago, and at this time has 314, growing daily. One line of the letter, posted on their website (www.seruv.org.il), reads: We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people. This movement has the potential of becoming a strong catalyst for opposition to the continued and intensified occupation, but its current leadership suffers from serious political and organisational deficiencies similar to those of the liberal peace movement.

Their grounds for refusing are overwhelmingly moral and conscientious, and they make no criticism of government policies other than the occupation and the war of the settlements. They are trying to remain apolitical and within the Zionist consensus, and do not appeal to conscripts, without whom no successful campaign to end the occupation is possible. After this last round of Brutal IDF raids and deadly Palestinian reaction, we stand a step closer to a full fledged regional war. Sharon, as it seems, is trying to remove all obstacles standing in the way of IDF operations, casually shrugging off political initiatives such as the Saudi plan suggested by crown prince Abdalla (but probably engineered by the US administration). Assasina-tions of Palestinian militants, which killed more than 20 unrelated civilians in the recent violence, are set to increase.

An order given to soldiers recently, allowing them to shoot at every arm-bearing Palestinian anywhere, stands the chance of forcing into armed resistance 40,000 Palestinian uniformed policemen from the official security apparatus who have so far avoided an open confrontation with the Israeli army. An emergency mobilisation of Israeli reserves is becoming a likely possibility, which will not go unnoticed by the Syrian and Egyptian army, furthermore the US prepares to light the tinderbox with a massive attack on Iraq expected in the late spring.

No solutions under capitalism
Though a temporary ceasefire at some point cannot be ruled out, the unresolved contradictions which have erupted in the second Intifada have only multiplied in the past 18 months, making even a fragile Oslo-type truce higly unlikely. Only the Palestinian masses and the Israeli working class, the main victims of war, suicide attacks, occupation and economic collapse, can offer a genuine way out by toppling the capitalist regimes on both sides, creating mutual links in the process and resolving all the contentious issues, insoluble under capitalism, in their common interests.

Maavak Sotzialisti has several tasks at this difficult period. One is intervention in the anti-occupation movement, advocating a class perspective and program and shattering the illusions in diplomatic capitalist solutions and the international community. The guns may be roaring, but the class struggle in Israel is alive and kicking, as the ongoing strikes and the occupation of the Bagir textile factory by its 1,080 workers show.

We expose the failure of the corrupt capitalist politicians to provide either economic or personal security. Their failure poses the need for independent working class positions and program, as well as the struggle for socialism a socialist Israel and an independent, socialist Palestine leading to a democratic, socialist federation of the Middle East on a free and equal basis, which will transform the living standards of the masses of the region while safeguarding the rights of all minorities.