Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The nomination of Deputy Ruth Coppinger marks the first time in the history of this State that a woman has been nominated for the position of Taoiseach. Women continue to be treated as second-class citizens in this State. Of those living in poverty, around 70% are women. Child care provision lags way behind the European norm. Meanwhile, many historic wrongs done to women remain to be righted. Only this week in Northern Ireland a 21-year-old woman was given a criminal record for terminating her pregnancy. The exact same fate can befall her sisters in this State. The last Dáil, to its shame, passed legislation allowing for 14-year jail sentences for women who terminate their pregnancies here. In the United States Donald Trump has said that women should be punished for accessing abortion services in states where abortion has been made illegal, but this already happens here. Is it not punishment that women are forced to go abroad in secrecy and shame to access services that should be legal here? The Thirty-second Dáil should end this dinosaur regime, stop defying public opinion, and act to remove the eighth amendment to the Constitution and legislate for abortion rights. Will there be a need for an active mass campaign to pressure this House to do so? Yes, I believe so. I also believe that the nomination of Deputy Coppinger puts down a marker that these issues will be highlighted in a spirited fashion from these benches in this Dáil.

Nearly six weeks after the election, there is still no new Government. The largest party in this House is wounded, the two main parties of the elite are stalemated and the Dáil is in a state of semi-paralysis. The press warns of the dangers of this situation, including the danger of industrial unrest. Bus drivers, Luas drivers and DART drivers are pressing pay claims. The press warns that nurses, gardaí, teachers and others may follow suit. Let us hope they do so. Working people were nailed to the floor and fleeced, first by Fianna Fáil, then by Fine Gael and the Labour Party, during the crisis years with water charges, the property tax, the universal social charge, pay cuts and pension levies. Now, working people see the recovery being robbed from them.

The Panama papers shine a light on a global capitalist elite maximising incredible wealth at the expense of society, sometimes illegally. In this republic, most of the elite do not need offshore accounts: the policy of successive Governments has already made this a paradise isle for the super wealthy, made richer again by the austerity measures forced upon the population. If hard-pressed working people, trapped by inadequate incomes, haunted by a housing crisis and crippled by austerity charges, can use their industrial muscle to claim their fair share of the recovery while the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil mating dance continues, they will have the full support of Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit.

Meanwhile, it is reported that water charges can become a stumbling block to negotiations. We say to the people that they should place no faith whatever in any of the major parties to voluntarily abolish these charges but they, the people, can force those parties to do so. The weapon they have is the boycott. We are appealing to every household to boycott the next bill and make water such an issue that the parties will have no choice but to abolish the charges. A mass national demonstration called by the anti-water charges movement would also be a real pressure point at this time.

Deputies Kenny and Martin will meet tonight. An arrangement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would produce a government that might make the hairs stand up on the back of the necks of progressive people and those who seek real change in this society. Sooner or later such a government would draw a response from ordinary people in the communities, from those who are tired of water charges and austerity measures, in the workplace, from those who need a pay rise, and in society, from those who want to counter a right-wing alliance with a real left alternative. From all such struggles, a new left will emerge; a new mass party of working people. Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit will be an important part of it. In such a way, the ground can be prepared for a genuine left-wing government. The nomination of Deputy Ruth Coppinger is a declaration of intent on our part to prepare for such an eventuality.

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