Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

-----both working and when they move out of work to retirement, if that is their wish. It should be voluntary. The problem is that the wealth is apportioned unequally in our society and that is the reason the Minister's Government, under the edict of the EU-IMF and the ECB, which are in turn under the edict of the financial markets, which are the real dictatorship, is dictating that working people will not be given retirement pensions because they do not want to commit sufficient wealth that is created to do that. That wealth must instead go towards the profits of financial markets, the bankers and so forth.

This alone shows the brutality of the system, but it also shows the extent of the betrayal involved, particularly by the Labour Party. Just behind me there is a bust of that great man James Connolly. What would he think now of the party he founded with Larkin and others to stand and fight for a socialist society where wealth would be democratically socialised and owned, so that it would be at the disposal of society and the people? It would have created a much more humane and comfortable life. Connolly would find it truly shameful that the party he founded is now lending itself to the programme dictated by financial markets, including unknown bankers, hedge-fund operators and speculators.

There is a different way, of course, which is that those financial markets should be taken into public ownership, under democratic control and accountability.

See this speech in context