Jimmy Dignam, WP candidate Dublin Nth West
Workers’ Party spokesperson Jimmy Dignam has said that the reported spurt in economic growth making headlines across the state today is just an illusion for the great majority of working class people who have experienced little or no recovery while many more have seen their personal situation get starkly worse as this nascent Celtic Tiger roars for the few.
Jimmy Dignam said that on the same day as “Celtic Tiger Nua” has hit the headlines subordinate news stories have seen a new surge of people in emergency accommodation while charities such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul are under unprecedented pressure trying to respond to calls for help.
“The much vaunted idea of a rising tide lifting all boats is being exposed as a sham day by day in Ireland at Christmas 2015. While headline economic growth reaches new heights working class families are being inundated by debt and misery. The gap between rich and poor is a yawning chasm and as the number of millionaires in the state heads for 100,000 the number on housing lists and in consistent poverty is in a similar growth pattern”, said the Dublin North West representative.
Dignam continued “The suggestion that rapid economic growth equates with good times for all is a falsehood. It also revives fears of history repeating itself and another economic meltdown which, without doubt, would once again be paid for by those who had least to do with it and benefitted the least from it. Behind the sound of the tinkle of glasses at the stock-exchange this evening in another corner of Ireland the cries of the marginalised are being drowned”