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

I will come back to it, a Cheann Comhairle.

Mr. Trump has spoken about reducing US corporation tax from 35% to 15%. His low tax model does not go as far as the Irish Government’s rate of 12.5%. The Irish model has produced huge inequality, poor funding for public services and a race to the bottom.

I was born in the United States of America in the state of Ohio. This gives me a certain insight - I will not say more than that - into American politics and the attitudes of its people. I am strongly of the opinion that if Bernie Sanders had stood as an independent, left, anti-establishment candidate in this presidential election, he could have and would have beaten Donald Trump. It shows the need for the building of a radical, left, anti-establishment alternative. In the United States, there is a two-party system, Democrats and Republicans. In Ireland, there is also a two-party system which has been dominated by Fianna Fáil, on the one hand, and Fine Gael, on the other.

I listened to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and Deputy Michael McGrath when they made their speeches on the budget a couple of weeks ago. They expressed the hope that the centre would hold. In reality, they expressed the hope that the traditional right-wing parties would hold their grip on Irish politics. I remember thinking that night that the points they were making and hopes they were expressing were off the mark because they underestimated the effects of the policies of recent years on the mass of ordinary people. They underestimated the pain and anger that ordinary people feel and the mood and desire for real change among them.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has tapped not only into the reservoir of misogyny and racism but also into the justified anger that tens of millions of ordinary Americans feel because of austerity politics. The lesson in this country and others throughout the world is that the positive sentiment, the mood for change, must be tapped. It must not be tapped by the establishment because the mood is against it. We do not want it to be tapped by the populist right; it must be tapped by the radical left in a positive and progressive way. It must be anti-racist, in favour of women's and workers' rights and anti-establishment. AAA-PBP commits to redoubling its effort to building such a radical-left alternative in this country, as I am sure others will do in other countries.

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