Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

This was a referendum of the ordinary people of Ireland. The people have decided. Therefore, forthwith, restore the medical cards, abolish the water tax and build the homes that are desperately needed. By the way, what a crushing indictment it is of this Government that, in 1975, 8,794 homes were built by local authorities, whereas last year 293 were built, with 90,000 families waiting.

As the Labour Party has melted into the capitalist establishment, there is a real thirst in our country for a new political movement that is independent of that establishment. It is a genuine mass movement that represents ordinary people. This means organising to fight for real change, whereby the wealth in society is used and developed not to enrich the few, as now, but to transform the lives of our people and end the suffering of so many.

On Friday, people turned in droves from the Government. Hard questions will be asked of all those to whom they turned, including Independents and Sinn Féin, as to whether they are prepared to lead a movement to break with the disaster of capitalist economics, which has resulted in 26 million people being unemployed in Europe, and capitalist politics, or whether they will take a road that mirrors the Labour Party's unfortunate trajectory.

For Ruth Coppinger, as for myself in this assembly, the great socialist James Connolly, whose statue stands behind us, will be a constant inspiration and reminder that we are here not to serve any personal ambition but to struggle for democratic socialist change to achieve the transformation of our society in a way that can meet the needs of all our people and end the barbarities and cruelty inflicted on so many by the present system.

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