Magnificent turn-out by an awakened people

Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland

1 November 2014

The Communist Party of Ireland expresses its solidarity and its admiration for the magnificent turn-out out around the country today [1 November].  Nearly 200,000 people across the country participated in local demonstrations, many people  taking to the streets for the first time.  The trade union led  Right2Water Campaign has unified and rallied the people.

The people are speaking as one in their demand for the scrapping of the proposed water charges. Working people are clearly saying they have had enough of austerity, enough of the spin and lies of the Government and the major parties, enough of the cuts and charges. They are sick of watching house prices and rents skyrocketing beyond their reach. They are sick of watching the elite grow ever richer while workers’ wages are cut to pieces and their families are stretched to breaking-point.

Speaking at the Right2Water Campaign rally in Cabra, Dublin, the general secretary of the CPI, Eugene McCartan, called for maximum unity of all those opposed to water charges. “The people have awakened to their own power and strength in numbers,” he said, “and will not be deflected."

“Only an amendment to the Constitution that guarantees to the people their ownership of water can prevent this or any future Government commodifying and privatising water.”

The CPI believes that it is now time for the rest of the trade union movement to stand up, not only to oppose these charges but to defend their members’ interests and those of all workers, and to cut themselves free of the cosy behind-the-scenes deals with a bankrupt Government and a discredited Labour Party.

 

The trade union movement now needs to catch up with its members and the wider working class. They have to become radical or they will become as redundant as the Labour Party will be after the next general election.