CPI Press Statement

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND

8 May 2011

The case for repudiation becomes urgent:

The stark scenario outlined by Prof. Morgan Kelly is a clear warning that this debt cannot be paid and must not be paid. Yet we still witness a few economists lumbering along under the illusion that it can and must be paid, a circle now confined to a dwindling number of that profession employed by the Central Bank of Ireland or corporate banks and advisers to the Government or are beholding to their pay masters in the European Union. The total debt burden placed upon the Irish people by the European Union to save the euro, will be in the region of €240 billion by 2014.

This crippling debt cannot be paid, nor should it be paid. It is not the people’s responsibility. The question is not one of “default.” To default would continue to place the obligation upon the Irish people to pay some or all of this corporate debt. Default would allow the European Union and international finance houses to determine the terms and conditions of a restructuring of the debt.

The only way forward is through repudiation of this debt. It is not owned by the people, nor is it our responsibility. To repudiate it is to assert our national sovereignty and the sovereignty of the people above all else.

The payment of this debt in the form of massive cuts in people’s income, the destruction of the health services and the educational system and the services people rely upon is unacceptable.

The Communist Party calls upon the people to mobilise behind the Repudiate the Debt Campaign and support its call to the Irish people to begin to engage in widespread civil disobedience in defiance of this Government and of the European Union. To honour James Connolly by supporting the "Hope and Defiance" manifestation outside the Dail on the 12th May called by the Repudiate the Debt Campaign.

Eugene Mc Cartan
General Secretary
087 9733414