Renua exposed as yet another party for the super wealthy

 It’s not really a secret to anyone paying attention but Renua have really blown their cover with their pre-budget submission. Far from being any sort or radical departure they are yet another party for the wealthiest 1% who have been plundering our labour with the aid of every previous government.

As Michael Taft explains "Renua has called for a flat-rate tax. It represents a massive transfer from the lowest income groups to the highest income groups. It will require low and middle income groups to fund not only their own tax cuts but even higher tax cuts for those on much higher incomes.
… they want to cut inheritance tax to 20 percent while raising thresholds to €500,000. Someone inheriting €1 million would gain over €150,000."

Survey shows Irish want undocumented migrants given work & residency rights in the USA and in Ireland

It turns out that when the Irish public are asked about the treatment of undocumented migrants here in Ireland in the context of being asked about undocumented Irish migrants in the USA the racist hostility that is too often expressed almost evaporates.

This was the finding of a RedC poll commissioned by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland. The MRCI estimates there are between 20,000 and 26,000 undocumented people in Ireland, including thousands of children.

What is Solidarity Times

A trailer for our new Facebook page for people in Ireland that provides coverage of struggles here. 

Anything of interest to an international audience is also posted to the WSM Facebook page so if you are outside Ireland you should just follow that one at http://www.facebook.com/WorkersSolidarityMovement

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The Bolt Interview – a squatted emergency accommodation hostel in Dublin – video interview

The Bolt is an abandoned hostel for the homeless that has been occupied and brought back into use by an alliance of 6 housing groups in Dublin.

In this video Solidarity Times interview one of the organisers in some detail about the building, support from local residents and what has been going on with the council.

20th June Burn the Bills Anti Water Charges march in Dublin – video

Thousands of people marched through Dublin June 20th to protest the continuing attempt to impose water charges on the ‘Burn your Bills’ protest.

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Media Baron Denis O’Brien Silences Nation

The last 24 hours (29th May) have demonstrated the truth of ‘If you want to know who really rules you find out who you are not allowed to criticise’. As the image shows billionaire media mogul Denis O’Brien has managed to almost completely suppress stories about him in the few outlets he does not control.

Those media outlets he has ownership of seem to have somehow missed TD Catherine Murphy’s revelation that somehow O’Brien had managed to only pay 1.25% interest on the 500 million he owed to IBRC (in effect to us) rather than the expected market rate of around 7.5%. The difference costs us about 30 million a year.

This isn’t the first story of O’Brien getting a good deal from the IBRC. Almost a year ago the Irish Times reported "in a deal that again involved the writing down of bank debt. O’Brien took a controlling interest after he bought about €304 million of the Topaz Energy Group’s] loans from the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), in liquidation,for a reported €150 million."

Grangegorman eviction – Solidarity starts with a Fry

The reactions to the attempted evictions of the 27 people who occupied the long vacant Grangegorman complex here and elsewhere online has been interesting. On the ground at the gates people passing have been curious, and overwhelmingly positive. Some have brought down gifts including the pictured fry up from council workers at the depot nearby.

NCAD students occupy director office and read demands

The simmering student revolt that started this spring in Amsterdam and spread to the LSE in London has now reached Dublin. Austerity has meant the acceleration of the EU neoliberal plan to turn universities into over packed and pressured factories churning out little human units optimised for industry.

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Capitalism in Ireland – Many of us have no home, a few have 500 plus

Thank’s to the unpopular property tax we at least know slightly more about the super wealthy in Ireland. The government is normally very careful to neither collect information about this group nor to publish it in a way that would reveal the enormous gap in wealth and power between us and them. It would not do to have Joe or Josephine Worker realise that they could work for 10,000 years and still never approach the wealth of the Denis O’Briens.