Workers’ Party mark centenary of the 1916 Rising

Below is the full text of the Easter oration delivered yesterday:-

Comrades and Friends,

 

We gather here today to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising, and to celebrate the vision of an independent, democratic, progressive Republic that motivated the men and women of the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army in 1916.

 

We remember too all those who have struggled, lived, and so often died, for an Ireland where the people would be “lord and master”. We especially remember our comrades who gave their lives in recent decades, and all our comrades who have left us who dedicated themselves to our collective struggle to build a radically different and better Ireland.

 

We are not here today simply as an act of commemoration. Today’s event is about the present and the future even more than it is about the past. We gather here today as a political statement: our presence symbolises our ongoing commitment to the struggle to establish a democratic, secular, socialist unitary state on our island – a Republic.

 

The centenary of the 1916 Rising offers an opportunity to reflect on the aims of the men and women of 1916, on the nature of the Rising, on its legacy, and on its relevance for the ongoing struggle to place political and economic power in the hands of the working class – the ongoing struggle for the Reconquest of Ireland by its people.

 

100 years on from the Rising, Ireland is a very different country, but there remains a great deal in 1916 from which we can take inspiration. The Rising was a blow for freedom and democracy in a world dominated by empires, monarchs, aristocrats, and oligarchs. The Rising was a blow for equality for women in an age where they lacked even the vote. The Rising was a blow for social justice in a city with the worst slums in Europe. The Rising was a blow against the imperialist war, the great industrial slaughter of millions of human beings. As Tomás Mac Giolla noted 25 years ago, James Connolly was fighting for socialism, for independence, for neutrality, and against war. These, comrades, were ideals worth fighting for.

The Proclamation of the Republic in 1916 promised “equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens”. We live in an Ireland of increasing inequality, an Ireland where the children of the working class are denied equal educational opportunity, an Ireland of precarious employment, of zero-hours contracts, of rack-renting, of hungry children. Homelessness is on the rise across the island, and people are dying on our streets because of it. How can such misery exist in a country with as much wealth as ours.

 

Recently we have seen an entire housing estate sold off to vulture capitalists, and now all those living there face the likelihood of eviction, with scores of families already told they will have to leave. Why is this allowed to happen?

 

The answer is quite simple. We have the resources and the ability to easily solve the problem of homelessness. We in the Workers’ Party have produced detailed plans as to how this might be done. How the state, if it chooses, can build the houses needed to end the crisis. If the state were to do so, however, it would diminish the profits of the capitalist class. And that is unacceptable both to the capitalists and to the politicians who look after their interests.

 

Opposition to the state playing a greater role in the economy is the economic, political and ideological orthodoxy north and south, whether it is in the cabinet in Dáil Éireann or the Executive in Stormont. The state represents, as it represented 100 years ago, the interests of the bankers, the developers, the slum landlords, the loan sharks, the shareholders, the speculators, foreign and domestic: it does not represent the interests of the working class. The idea of equality is a sham while inequalities of wealth, supported by state power, ensure the exploitation and oppression of the many by the few.

 

The Proclamation declared “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland”. Again, we find ourselves in a situation where the political and social elites are committed to the exact opposite. Both states have witnessed a wave of privatisations, with more to come as soon as they think they can overcome any opposition. Our natural resources have been sold for a song, and any profits made are going into private pockets, instead of being used for the public good, especially the creation of a sustainable economy with high-quality jobs. Having handed over these resources, the state then suppresses protests and facilitates environmentally-destructive practices to aid the pursuit of maximum profit.

 

In Northern Ireland, the Executive parties, including those that claim to be of the left, have committed themselves to “rebalancing” the economy away from the public sector. What this means in practical terms is simple. 20,000 unionised public sector jobs, with comparatively decent pay and conditions, are to be eliminated. At the same time, to “rebalance” the economy and the budget, corporation tax is to be lowered so as to create a “Liechtenstein on the Lagan”. The jobs of working class people are being sacrificed so that multinational corporations can dodge tax, in return for a few crumbs from the table, and so that Northern Ireland can fit better into the neo-liberal model currently favoured by international capitalism. This is a programme of government cuts, born and bred in Belfast.

 

The public ownership of water remains in serious jeopardy throughout Ireland. In both states, changes have been made to how the water service is managed that are clearly the early steps in a process of privatisation. Access to clean water is a basic human right. An essential public service, it should be paid for out of public money.

 

There has been a tremendous effort by the people to resist the implementation of water charges and the attempts of Irish Water and the state to intimidate people into compliance. The Workers’ Party has played a full role in that campaign, and we are proud of our involvement in it. While gratified by the success of the campaign, we note the noises coming from some Dáil parties who claimed they would abolish charges and Irish Water. Certain parties are already laying the groundwork for a sell-out, albeit a sell-out by sleight-of-hand. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin and the rest of the Executive have postponed water charges, but have refused to say they will never come in. This delaying measure has been a characteristic response of the Executive throughout its existence, but we are coming to a point where decisions cannot be delayed much longer. The fight against water charges and for the restoration of the water service to democratic local control must continue, and we will continue to play our part in it.

 

The Proclamation speaks of “cherishing all the children of the nation equally”. That objective is only compatible with the building of a secular state. Yet the present reality is the laws and the ethos both North and South remain heavily influenced by religion. Religious institutions continue to control large parts of the health and education systems that ought to be the sole responsibility of the state. This is highly undemocratic. A democratic state must be secular.

 

Moreover, the absence of a secular state deepens sectarian division. Since the time of Tone and the United Irishmen, the battle to unite Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter has been fundamental to any revolutionary understanding of republicanism. Connolly expressed the importance of secularism:  “Socialism is neither Protestant nor Catholic, Christian nor Freethinker, Buddhist, Mahometan, nor Jew; it is only HUMAN. We of the Socialist working class realise that as we suffer together we must work together that we may enjoy together.”

 

The secularisation of the state and the fight against sectarianism remain an essential part of our politics, as they were for Tone, Lalor, and Connolly. In this centenary year of 1916 our commitment to them is as unwavering as ever.

 

Women are not cherished equally anywhere on this island today. The battle for the vote may have been won long ago, but we remain a long, long way from genuine equality for women. Unbelievably, the pay gap in the south has actually worsened in recent years, and now stands at 14%. To put that another way, women work for almost two months a year for nothing.

 

Women, North and South, remain much more likely to be in low paid and precarious employment, and much less likely to be promoted. In the Republic, half of all working women earn 20,000 euro or less. Women are half as likely as men to earn 50,000 euro. The fact that the average wage overall is 28,000 euro shows just how much more men earn on average than women.

 

Equality laws are not being enforced, but it is also the case that women continue to suffer because of the predominance of sexist attitudes within Irish society, in the world of work and more generally.

 

Perhaps the outstanding example is in the area of reproductive rights, where the patriarchal and religious assumptions that permeate both states still deny women equality and their rights. This is not the society envisioned by women member of the Irish Citizen Army and other women activists in 1916. The Workers’ Party supports a full programme to end the culture that denies women their reproductive rights. We call for secular sex education in schools, free access to contraception, proper health and social care for pregnant women, the provision of appropriate free and quality child care facilities, and adequate support for single and low income parents. We support the call for a referendum to repeal the 8^th Amendment to the constitution, and demand free and full access to abortion and post-abortion care.

 

The elections in both states allow us in 2016 to see how far Ireland’s politics remain from those that motivated the men and women of 1916. The election of more left TDs was a welcome development, and it was clear that many voters voted for what they thought were parties committed to a left agenda. The fact that neither of the two major parties can easily form a coalition is certainly a major difference from recent elections. However the fragmentation of the vote and the refusal of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to enter coalition has somewhat disguised how little has changed. For example, For example, the percentage of seats held by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil has actually increased slightly, and many of the independents elected represent the same type of politics offered by those two. We already know from Northern Ireland that the party that came third will, when it suits it, happily administer austerity and blame outside forces. Therefore, while the balance of party forces is highly unusual, the ideological core of Irish politics remains largely unaffected. We remain in the grip of the right.

 

The Workers’ Party contested the recent Dáil elections to put ourselves forward as the socialist alternative. We were centered on raising the profile of the Party in the constituencies in which we stood, on mobilising the membership, and recruiting new members and supporters. Members worked extremely hard, and we received a good response on the doorstep. New members were recruited. So in organisational terms the election had positive results, and there is in many areas a solid base for working towards the next local elections. For the first time in many years we did not contest the Waterford constituency. For many elections over the last two decades Waterford was a flag-bearer for the party nationally and we are sure that come the next election that the Workers’ Party banner will again be flown there strongly.

 

At the same time, we had hoped that the results would have been better. They make clear the necessity for the Party to clearly communicate its message, to work on those who were favourable but did not give us their first preference, and to improve our ability to reach new numbers of people with our unabashed socialist politics and message. We must continually review our own approach and methods, to question what we do and how we do it, to ensure that our politics are relevant to the issues facing working class people.

 

We go into the Assembly elections with similar aims. Once again, as we have done over decades, we raise the flag of democratic, anti-sectarian, socialist politics – the alternative to the cosy, sectarian, right-wing consensus that is Stormont. We go into the Assembly elections as a means of building both the Workers’ Party and the space for left politics. We saw at the last Westminster elections that there is a growing constituency for a strong anti-sectarian, socialist message, even in some of the most sectarian constituencies in Northern Ireland. Our people have been working hard preparing for this election, but there remains a lot to do. Let’s go out there and do it.

 

One of the most serious threats facing both jurisdictions is that of TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – which will lead to a hollowing out of democracy, increased privatization and will undermine living, working and environmental conditions. The increasing right-wing lurch of the EU is also manifested in its response to the refugee crisis. The events of the past week give us some indication of the awful terror that those refugees are fleeing from. The EU is an imperialist institution, undemocratic and unreformable.  Our comrades in Northern Ireland, will therefore be campaigning for the UK to exit on a left wing platform – LEXIT.

 

Comrades,

A century after 1916 we stand here a Party committed to the politics of James Connolly, to the establishment of a socialist Ireland where the working class exercises economic and political power. That means building the Workers’ Party, building a cadre membership drawn from the most class-conscious elements of the working class; it means promoting our message among ever greater numbers of people, in local communities, workplaces, trade unions, and elsewhere; it means the daily grind of education, agitation, organisation. This is the path to our goal. This is the means to the Irish revolution.

 

Thank you comrades.