Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

We understand that this is a difficult time and that the by-election will be a difficult time for the family and close personal friends of the late Deputy, Brian Lenihan. The Socialist Party and the United Left Alliance, our candidate, Councillor Ruth Coppinger, and me as director of elections understand that and pledge that this will not be a personalised campaign with the type of abuse and vitriol now filling the air and airwaves in the presidential election. It will be a campaign on the real issues affecting the ordinary people of Dublin West and putting forward the left and socialist alternative to the problems we face in society and in the constituency.

The Dublin West by-election gives an invaluable opportunity to the people of Dublin West to speak not only on their own behalf but on behalf of the entire country to pass judgment on this Fine Gael and Labour coalition and its record since it assumed power almost seven months ago. The Socialist Party and the United Left Alliance and our candidate, Councillor Ruth Coppinger, will highlight the serious breach of promises by Fine Gael and Labour made prior to the general election campaign and contrast that with their record since then.

The Labour Party and Fine Gael promised change from the clapped-out policies of the Fianna Fáil Administration and its Green appendage that preceded them. However, Labour and Fine Gael have utterly embraced the savage austerity initiated by Fianna Fáil in conjunction with and at the behest of the EU-IMF and the ECB - the establishment institutions of Europe which had one agenda only, not the interests of the Irish people but to bail out the major European financial institutions, speculators and gamblers from their reckless dealings in Irish property. Not only is it immoral and unjust but it is causing an economic disaster, with mass unemployment, cuts to the education and health services and tens of thousands of people, especially young people, being forced out of the country.

Labour and Fine Gael promised that they would make the bondholders and gamblers take severe cuts but what we have now is an abject U-turn. For example, the €3.5 billion in payments to unsecured Anglo Irish Bank bondholders that the Minister for Finance said some months ago would be severely cut is to be paid in full between now and June 2012. It is almost a similar figure to the savage €3.6 billion in cuts that this Government intends to implement in the budget in December. After promising that it would not introduce water charges, the Labour Party with Fine Gael now propose to impose a household tax and a water tax that will quickly go from €100 to €1,000. Those are impossible new burdens for many households and increasing strata of society.

The people of Dublin West can take a stand against this austerity with its disastrous economic consequences, immorality and injustice. The people of Dublin West can take a stand in the by-election in favour of and to support their crucial local health facility, Blanchardstown hospital, which is enduring savage cuts - €104 million in its budget two years ago and €84 million this year - leading to ward closures and serious problems to the extent that doctors are even concerned about whether they can continue to provide a safe service. That is a betrayal by Labour and Fine Gael of the people of Dublin West and what they said previously.

It is ironic that the leader of Fianna Fáil would attack the left in Dublin West in the context of the by-election. Fianna Fáil, the party that has reduced our society through its 14 years in government and consequent disastrous austerity policies to the crisis we have at the present time. The Socialist Party and the United Left Alliance will fight for the alternative in this regard. We will resist austerity. We will campaign with people power and invite the people of Dublin West to stand with us. We will advocate the economic alternative, to stop paying the gambling bondholders and to invest instead significantly in public ownership of financial institutions, introduce democratic control and, in terms of the euro zone crisis, to bring the catastrophic financial markets to heel with a democratic and socialist alternative to how they should be run.

Councillor Ruth Coppinger has been a public representative for the past eight years. She is an outstanding activist with a record second to none in fighting for proper planning and development in the area, in opposition to unjust charges, water taxes, bin taxes and the privatisation of services, education cuts and in support of her local hospital and many other issues. As a Deputy she would use her position as a lever of power for the people of Dublin West. What is the point in sending another backbencher to join the 113 that are already slashing the living standards of people? She will be a representative on the average industrial wage. Her election will be a signal that the United Left Alliance, the Socialist Party, and the left generally will begin and continue the process for a new political party of ordinary working people that will represent an alternative to the failed policies of austerity and those parties that implement them.

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