Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

One hundred and sixty six elected representatives have spent a week on the so-called review of the programme for Government. To my mind, it is a waste of time and a pre-election stunt by the Government to put its wares out in the run-up to local and European elections on 23 May. It reminds me of a pantomime with one side shouting, “Oh yes we did” while the other shouts, “Oh no you did not.” Meanwhile in the real world, people up and down the country are struggling with the effects of the crisis and have switched off this debate. If this week had been put aside to introduce legislation for the 13,266 IBRC mortgage holders, then people would be listening. If this week had been put aside to discuss the important issue of the housing crisis and 90,000 families - that is 170,000 individuals - on local authority housing lists, then people would listening. If we were discussing introducing protection against job losses at Elverys, the people would be listening. They have switched off, along with every Member on this side of the House, however.

The Government’s record is either a resounding success or a disaster depending on one’s position in society. If one is a member of the wealthy elite, or part of the establishment like Wilbur Ross, the Government is a tremendous success which has stood over a massive transfer of wealth to the already wealthy while putting the burden of paying for the economic crisis on those who can least afford to take it. It has ensured the financial system is intact with business as usual with nothing changing for the wealthy elite. The tragedy is that nothing will change.

The responsibility of that rests with the Labour Party. It entered government pledging to protect working people and the poor. It was a worthless pledge as the poorest and most vulnerable in society have been deliberately targeted with Labour Ministers at the forefront of such attacks. The real betrayal by Labour is that once again for the establishment it has failed to provide an alternative. This is, unfortunately, within the tradition of the Labour Party. It stood aside in 1918 and has done so ever since. What sort of society goes from a property bubble where ten years ago more residential units were being built than in the whole of the UK to a few years later where it has the biggest housing crisis in its history? This is an even bigger scandal than the banks’ bailout with the real danger that nothing will change. It is all down to the complete failure of Labour, supposed to protect the working people and the poor, to put forward an alternative vision of how society could be organised differently. Without a vision of an alternative society, what is the point of the Labour Party?

Who needs a political party whose sole function is to alternate between supporting Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in government and providing ministerial positions and pensions for its leading members? Working people and the poor need an alternative and it is clear that will not be provided by the Labour Party. It could and should have remained out of government in 2011 and committed itself to creating the basis for a left wing government in the future. This task has fallen to others and any political movement or party committed to change must begin with a basic commitment never to support Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in government. On the contrary, its policy should be to destroy both these parties as a dominant force in politics, otherwise we will be condemned to this endless, farcical pantomime of Tweedledum and Tweedledee politics.

The thousands of people who face losing the roof over their heads is the important issue that needs to be discussed now. This situation will worsen. As Focus Ireland has pointed out, the number of families on the streets has increased from eight to 16 per month while five children a week are going homeless. The Government has allowed this to happen over the past three years. Five years ago I tabled a motion before Dublin City Council calling for NAMA properties to be taken over by local authorities. We knew the crisis was beginning at the time and now we are witnessing the naked face of homelessness.

We will be condemned to Tweedledum and Tweedledee politics if there is no change and if people do not organise themselves to organise that change and get rid of the shenanigans we have seen in the House this week.

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