Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the People Before Profit Alliance, the by-elections offer a welcome opportunity to puncture the bubble of self-congratulation and the stream of bogus claims of success by the Government over recent weeks. They also offer an important opportunity to get away from a nauseating media obsession with personality spats and internal factional disputes and manoeuvrings in the main parties. These personality and ego-based disputes are going on in Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil and they are totally devoid of any talk of policy or substance.

The by-elections will give voters an opportunity to remind Members and the media what are the issues that matter and that are affecting them and to cut through the nonsense about supposed economic recovery because the truth in Roscommon, Tallaght and Templeogue is people are suffering continuing, and soon to worsen, financial hardship as a result of water charges, the full year effect of property tax, the universal social charge, cuts to public services, which are destroying the health service and a housing crisis of unprecedented proportions about which the Government is showing no urgency to address. I am proud that we have a candidate, Nicky Coules, who was recently elected a councillor in Tallaght. He has been a plumber all his life and he has lived for 32 years in Jobstown, one of the areas most blighted by unemployment and poverty and the impact of cuts by this and the previous Government. As a plumber, he knows well that we need to fix the pipes rather than charge people for the trickle of water that comes out of them and the impact of the disastrous policies of austerity on working class communities. He knows that we should put people like him back to work building social housing, primary care centres that were promised but not delivered, schools, other vital infrastructure, fixing the water pipes that could aid economic rather than engaging in spin and false promises.

I look very much forward to the by-elections. We will also give a preference to another campaigner and fighter in Dublin South West, Paul Murphy of the Socialist Party.

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