While the general public are left to puzzle over paltry increases to social supports amidst the rising tide of inflation, mortgage arrears and energy bill defaults being farcically hailed as a “workers’ Budget” by the government and regime media, even RTÉ News had to acknowledge an “alarming truth” about the national finances of the Twenty Six Counties.
In a report from their Economics and Public Affairs Editor published earlier today, it is stated that, minus the “transient corporation tax receipts” on which the state’s FDI-led economy is based, the existing Budget surplus of €9 billion would become “an underlying deficit of €13.4 billion next year”.
This shameful and opportunistic approach to running the economy on the fumes of tech-led US imperialism is characteristic of the servility and lack of imagination of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael regime, who see their role primarily as custodians of the interests of United States capital, and secondarily to maintain political respectability amongst the reactionary elites at the top of the European Union.
The regime’s own broadcaster admits that in the event of any economic shift or downturn – which have been cyclical under capitalism – “Ireland’s economic model is in deep trouble”. This echoes the warning signs that predated the economic crash of 2008, after which Irish workers were left to shoulder the burden of the European Union’s banking debt.
We reject the subjugation of the Irish people to the interests of imperialism, and repudiate the attempts by the Twenty Six Counties government to pass off meagre subsidies – invariably passed on to landlords and predatory energy companies – and tax cuts as workers’ measures, while they double the budget for military spending and condemn the younger generations to a choice between deprivation and emigration.
We reiterate our commitment to the establishment of a Thirty-Two County Workers’ Republic, with all resources directed to meet the needs of the people, not to subsidise their oppressors!
