Budget: Irish people once more sacrificed for European banks and international financiers

Statement by the President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton

The latest austerity budget from the 26-County Administration once more sacrifices the people of Ireland in order to prop up European banks and international financiers. The very people who caused the biggest economic collapse in living memory are once more protected from the consequences of their greed and excess. Instead the Dublin regime slavishly follow the instructions of their political and economic masters of the EU, ECB and IMF troika and condemn this and future generations to poverty and powerlessness.

We salute the many thousands who take to the streets today and in recent weeks in opposition to the austerity programme. But we also say to the Irish Trade Union movement that the time has come when it must decide whether its first allegiance is to the Irish working class or to the hierarchy of the 26-County Labour Party? This is a question that cannot be avoided any longer.

The Labour party are willing collaborators in the political and economic sell-out of the Irish people and the trade union movement cannot ignore this reality any longer if they are to salvage any credibility. We join the calls for a national strike as the first stage in a fight back against the new economic imperialism which is engulfing not only Ireland but working people across the world.

We believe that the type of economic model set out in SAOL NUA is a template for real economic democracy. It is time for new economic thinking which recognises that the primary purpose of an economy is to serve the needs of people and not the reverse.