By Bernie McAdam
The General Election result in Ireland will see Fianna Fail and Fine Gael form the backbone of the next Irish government with the aid of one of the smaller parties or Independents. The recent Fianna Fail/Fine Gael/Green coalition had been in government since 2020 with Fine Gael in power for 14 years and Fianna Fail in power for 18 years previously. Indeed, either one or the other has run the state for just over a hundred years.
The recent Budget was designed to soften up the electorate with some small real income gains and one-off payments. But in reality, this was a cynical electoral ploy which has not seriously enhanced living standards of working class people, who have been savaged from all the years of austerity. This miserly Budget must be viewed against the backdrop of staggering windfall corporation tax receipts; by September it was €17.8 billion for the year, plus an Apple tax of €14 billion.
The government lost its battle not to receive unpaid tax from Apple having already wasted €8 million in legal fees. Previously the European Court had found Ireland guilty of giving Apple illegal tax advantages, and, despite protests, the Irish government was forced to accept the money! This demonstrates the semi-colonial status of the Irish economy as much as its role as a lucrative tax haven for imperialist corporations.
After over a decade of austerity, and with a serious housing and healthcare crisis, both FF and FG were experiencing a significant decline in their support. Sinn Fein looked poised for government, riding high in the polls at 32% in October 2023. But the last two general election results have seen a relatively equal distribution of votes and seats for these three main parties. Thus FF and FG have not significantly improved their performances, nor declined further, whilst SF’s forward momentum has been halted.
Although the immigration issue has altered the political dialogue in Ireland, it has not significantly altered the seats in the Dail. The far right electoral challenge fizzled out but we should not underestimate the ability of the current batch of right-wing TD’s to stoke the fires of anti-immigrant hysteria. The far right’s anti-immigrant riot in Dublin last November, the attacks on migrant centres and camps, the uptick in racist assaults, have all shaped and set the pace for other parties’ anti-immigrant policies. Sinn Fein in particular, have been spooked and now ironically proclaim their opposition to ‘open borders’ and speeding up deportations.
Government to blame
So while the far right influence has had a knock on effect, it is the Irish government which has been responsible for the recent crisis which has spawned the growth of the racist far right. First of all, the government decided to house as many of the Ukrainian refugees in accommodation as possible, whilst all other migrants had to fend for themselves. This resulted in homeless camps which became easy targets for fascists. Then Taoiseach Harris, his government having created the problem, hypocritically raged over ‘shanty towns’ in Ireland and subsequently shut down the camps around the International Protection Office, only to place the refugees in tented accommodation elsewhere in County Dublin.
Refugees are not the problem. There has always been a housing crisis! The government’s entirely inadequate response has been accentuated by their inability to deal with the housing crisis despite their healthy budget surplus. Ireland has a shortage of 250,000 homes, it has a chronic shortage of affordable homes to buy or rent and there are around 140,00 vacant dwellings in the state. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have for too long protected the interests of multinational corporations, property developers and absentee landlords. Their government’s neglect and discriminatory policies have fueled the rise of the far right.
We must demand the use of the government’s corporate billions and tax the super-rich to fund the rollout of out emergency policies to accommodate all the homeless by repurposing vacant commercial and corporate properties and launching a major house building programme. A massive programme of socially useful public works to provide full employment and develop the economic and social infrastructure is required. Working class communities should be involved in drawing up an audit of social needs as part of a democratically developed plan of production under workers’ control.
We also urgently need a workers’ united front to defend all migrants under attack and smash the fascist terror squads. The far right will not stop at refugees, but will target any so called ‘traitors’, as they have done already with their attacks on Sinn Fein and People Before Profit TD’s. Organised self defence is a necessity and needs to be seriously prepared for, as part of building a trade union-oriented anti-racist and anti-fascist movement.
Sinn Fein, no left alternative
The ruling parties have firmly rejected any coalition with Sinn Fein, no doubt a punishment for their historic association with the armed struggle against Britain, despite clear evidence of SF’s embracing of parliamentary democracy north and south of the border. This has not stopped around 20% of the voting electorate continuing to give SF their support. But this does not make them a genuine left-wing alternative, indeed their recent accommodation to the racist right further damaged their left wing credentials. But it was unsurprising to hear in the recent election campaign from two Cork Sinn Fein TD’s that Sinn Fein were now running with the idea of leading a left-wing coalition government with the Greens, Labour, Social Democrats, People before Profit-Solidarity and Independent lefts.
However, most of the small left-of-centre parties would prefer the real deal coalition with their bourgeois masters in FF/FG anyway. Despite the collapse of support for Labour and the Greens due to the experience of their previous coalitions, they still crave for government inclusion. Of course, the Greens now only have one TD. The Labour Party and the Social Democrats, though, have increased their number of seats in the Dail to 22 between them, but even the Social Democrats have not ruled out coalition with FF/FG.
So Sinn Fein’s ‘left government’ is hardly a realistic proposition, and, even if formed, would be left-wing in name only. Sinn Fein is not a socialist nor a workers’ party with organic and representative links to the organised working class, even though a significant slice of working class people vote for it. The political vacuum on the left in Ireland has always reflected the historic absence of a mass workers’ party based on the trade unions.
A Sinn Fein government would be as pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist as it is in the Stormont administration in the north, where it has implemented Westminster austerity and copper-fastened partition. It has done this in coalition with the DUP, one of the most reactionary parties in Europe. Their natural home would be a coalition with FF in the south, however unlikely, but even a Sinn Fein-led government without the FF or FG would not automatically make it a left-wing progressive one.
Sinn Fein have frequently made clear their desire to be a safe pair of hands to the southern ruling class in their respect for and defence of corporate power in the state. Pearse Doherty, Deputy Leader, even flew off to London to meet with and allay the fears of investors and asset managers. And if Sinn Fein isn’t going to go after big business as Doherty insists, then how else can working class living standards be defended and improved? Socialists can give no political support to a Sinn Fein-led pro-capitalist government, though obviously socialist TD’s would demand and vote for any progressive legislation in the Dail if or when it is introduced by Sinn Fein.
People before Profit
People before Profit (PbP) is the only left-wing party standing in the elections which has definitively ruled out any coalition with the two main bourgeois parties. PbP’s electoral bloc with Solidarity (Socialist Party) has now been reduced from five to three TD’s in the Dail, with only an increase of 5,000 first preference votes. Its lingering electoral base was originally secured on the back of its high profile in the victorious anti-water charges movement a decade ago. More recently, PbP has been the key player in building and initiating action in defence of migrants and anti-racist struggles from Dublin to Belfast, from Cork to Dundalk, and it has been active in many community and housing campaigns and has played a prominent role in the Palestine solidarity movement. It was the only left group worthy of a vote in the election.
Electing a strong contingent of PbP TD’s could have posed the question of what kind of mass party does the Irish working class need and could this be the vehicle for it? In that debate it will be incumbent on socialists to be absolutely clear why a new party of workers has to be a revolutionary one. We have to go beyond fighting for reforms which are disconnected from the goal of abolishing capitalism and replacing it with socialism.
We need to build a bridge between the two through a programme of transitional demands which also pose the kinds of workers’ organs of struggle that can mount a challenge to the capitalist state. In short, we need a new revolutionary party with a revolutionary action programme basing itself on the daily struggles of workers in opening up the fight for socialism.
Unfortunately, PbP does not have that perspective. It is a more reform-based movement with loose organization, rather than a cohesive party which could operate more effectively in a democratically centralist way. Whilst acknowledging the need for social struggles and workplace militancy, there is a deference to electoralist priorities. Their attitude to the question of what sort of government the working class needs in Ireland betrays a serious mistake in accommodating to SF.
PbP continues to insist that support for a Sinn Fein-led government (or entry into it) without FF or FG would be welcome, despite the fact that Sinn Fein cannot be trusted ‘to carry through a consistent left programme’ and that its ‘working class aspirations’ need to be put to the test. The problem here is that there are no working class organisations or ‘people power’ bodies to hold Sinn Fein to account. If Sinn Fein can slide to the right outside of government imagine what they would do when in government under the pressure of the US, UK and EU imperialists as well as Ireland’s own capitalist class. It can be categorically stated that Sinn Fein will not carry out any kind of a consistent left programme.
Of course, not all PbP members are sold on this ‘tactic’ as they watch SF scamper to the right, especially on immigration, and no doubt the debate will continue. But it serves no useful purpose to create the illusion that they should do a ‘left-wing deal’ e.g. by supporting Mary Lou McDonald as Taoiseach in advance of the election! Far better to warn workers in advance that a Sinn Fein-led government will be committed to maintaining the capitalist system. It will have nothing to do with a genuine workers’ government. If we want to put Sinn Fein to the test, then through our campaigns and trade union work, alongside their rank and file members, we demand their leaders struggle in the interests of workers by developing a clear strategy for working class action. We will not curry favour by cosying up to Sinn Fein, but through honest and sharp criticism of their pro-capitalist politics.
It is also true that a real workers‘ government, outside a period of rising class struggle, is not an option after this election, but a revolutionary socialist party should be explaining why we need one. On all the burning questions facing Irish workers we should be addressing how a workers’ government would best defend and extend their interests. It would have to base itself on organs of struggle and accountability like action committees, workers’ councils and workers’ defence squads that would create an alternative centre of power against the capitalist state. The urgent task for revolutionaries right now is to elaborate a revolutionary programme in the struggle for a Workers’ Republic and in building a new revolutionary party in Ireland.
