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

The people of Dublin South West and Roscommon-South Leitrim have a unique opportunity in the by-elections on 10 October to take a massive political cudgel to the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government. Now that these parties seem to have forgotten already the trenchant lesson the people delivered to them in the local and European elections on 23 May, the voters in these by-elections should use that cudgel to clobber them back into an awareness of the harsh reality of life experienced by ordinary men, women, households and families as a result of the savage ongoing austerity implemented by them. The people of Dublin South West and Roscommon-South Leitrim have the opportunity especially to expose and deconstruct the massive hypocrisy of the Labour Party whose leader, the Tánaiste, had the sheer neck to declare last week that the budget in October would bring austerity to a close and was afforded by The Irish Timesyet another soft headline in which she promoted herself as a chief denier of austerity by the Government. She has the audacity to declare that austerity will end the very week one of the newest and most vicious austerity attacks - water charges - kicks in. Irish Water says it will cost a family of four €500 a year.

However, Irish Water has significantly underestimated people's normal water usage, and I am not talking about waste. Households of five, four and six will face bills approaching €1,000. This is the reality of the new austerity attack. Paul Murphy is the Anti-Austerity Alliance candidate in the Dublin South-West by-election. He is a member of the Socialist Party, which will enthusiastically work alongside Anti-Austerity Alliance activists to enable him to win the seat, as did Deputy Coppinger in the Dublin West by-election, thanks to the people there.

Paul Murphy and the Anti-Austerity Alliance stand for a mass campaign to boycott the water charge, an unjust and unfair bankers' and bondholders' tax to continue the bailout. A mass boycott and mass campaign by the ordinary people, not just in Dublin West but the country generally, against this new and unjust imposition can and will force the Government to abolish it. In 1996, a mass campaign of people power and a by-election in Dublin West built on a boycott brought home to the Government of the day, also Fine Gael and the Labour Party, how hated the tax was and forced the Government to abolish it. Other critical issues, such as the housing misery of so many people must be raised. We need a new mass movement of ordinary people to challenge the establishment, the status quoand the underlying causes of austerity. In these by-elections the people can deliver to the Government a serious lesson that will force it to realise what people endure.

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