The emperor has no clothes

Communist Party of Ireland Statement

The Communist Party of Ireland today warned Irish workers not to fall for the latest ruse by the bankrupt political establishment with its announcement that this failed state will leave the “bail-out programme”—which is in fact a restructuring programme—by 15 December with or without a “precautionary credit line.”

 

This will not mean an end to any of the current or planned cuts in health, education, or social welfare, nor end the drive for privatisation. Nor will it prevent the need for continuous cuts in the future. The servicing of the debt is costing the Irish people nearly €9 billion per year—similar to the annual education budget. Austerity will be a permanent feature of the lives of working families far into the future.

 

Debt has become the principal political means for strengthening external mechanisms of control by the EU Commission – dominated by Germany - not just of this state but all member states and in particular over the other heavily indebted peripheral states. The capacity of the peoples across the European Union to democratically affect political and economic changes is being rapidly diminished. Democracy is being hollowed out.

 

It is simply not in the interests of the Irish political and economic establishment to assert independent actions, their interest lies in ensuring that the current process continues and deepens.

 

Ireland continues to be at the mercy of "the markets" - those who control the markets are those who control the troika.

 

Debt is also being used to push through the long-term strategic imperative of economic restructuring that is intended to restore lost inequalities and to impose new ones, not only in Ireland.

 

The announcement today has more to do with appearances than with reality. Just as we were the poster boy for economic development during the “Celtic Tiger” period, we are now being touted as the poster boy of good behaviour for accepting austerity without a whimper.

 

The European Union has to show to the people of Greece, Spain, Portugal and other EU member-states that if they take the austerity medicine without resistance, it works. 

 

The system itself is in a deep and deepening structural crisis with debt and stagnation just the latest manifestations.

 

The emperor has no clothes.