8 February 2015
NEWS
Also in this section:
Juncked 10
Paul Gallagher correspondence 12
BID problems 16
James Gogarty 18
SICAP under threat 19
Wealth tax 20
Barristers’ Code 22
Galway Port 24
Charter
2016
Let’s marshal the new
mood in Europe with a
stringent platform for
the Left.
By Frank Connolly
T
HE Syriza victory in Greece has
its foundations in the polarisa-
tion of that society following
the collapse of the economy
in the great financial crash of
2008/2009, and since. It is rooted in
the implosion of the traditional parties,
and in particular of PASOK, the social
democratic party that dominated the
Greek left, and many governments, in the
post-dictatorship era. The emergence in
a few short years of an alliance of former
communists, euro communists, radical
economists, trade unionists, commu-
nity organisations and cultural groups
to displace the traditional Left, and take
political power, has now inspired simi-
lar movements across Europe, notably
with Podemos in Spain, but also now in
Ireland.
Its plan is to renegotiate its huge debt
burden by swapping it for bonds linked
to growth, among other anti-corrup-
tion and tax-raising measures. Hardly
revolutionary and well short of burn-
ing all bondholders, but enough to bring
the wrath of the austerity-mongers in
the ECB, on to the charismatic Alexis
Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis
Varoufakis.
On the commemoration of his death
in January 1947 of that great socialist
and subversive, Jim Larkin, the presi-
dent of SIPTU, Jack O’Connor, recently
told the crowd assembled in Glasnevin
cemetery that it was an opportune time,
in the wake of the welcome and dramatic
Syriza victory, for the Left in Ireland to
cultivate and harvest a similar ambi-
tion, a year ahead of a general election
and the centenary of the Easter Rising.
He also set out the parameters of a pos-
sible charter of principles and policies
which could underpin a Left platform on
which different parties, organisations
and individuals could combine to offer
an alternative government.
“Dramatic possibilities are now open-
ing up here in Ireland as we approach
the centenary of the 1916 Rising. At this
extraordinary juncture, history is pre-
senting a ‘once in a century’ opportunity
Jack O’Connor with
Frank Connolly, of
SIPTU