NoelFliuch
I’ve just read both the policies document and the fiscal document for the fourth or fifth time.
Fiscal Policies
The fiscal document is totally aspirational. They continually go on about rejecting EU fiscal policies yet constantly go back to saying they’ll go to the EU and other EU and eurozone countries asking for their support – which I don’t see them getting – so effectively they’ve given themselves a ‘get out of jail free’ card for every single fiscal policy when it falls on its face.
That in turn means many of their other policies will fail because they hinge on the fiscal policies being enacted.
One huge flaw in their fiscal policy is the fact that it’s based on current government figures which we all know are politically skewed, deliberately misleading, and fundamentally undermined by other financial authorities – so that’s another ‘get out of jail free’ card for them (there was nothing left in the bank went we went to get the money etc).
Other Policies
I have to say the policy document is also full of aspirations many of which hinge totally on the fiscal document.
Democratic changes would be welcome but the changes put forward are quite superficial (tackling corruption, media ownership etc.) I would predict they’ll make a big fanfare out of those superficial changes when what we really need is wholesale change like full participatory democracy (which is not mentioned in their policy document).
We also need a right of recall by the people of any Dáil deputy, senator and judge, and that also isn’t mentioned in their policy document.
There also isn’t anything solid about how they might encourage more people to engage and participate in our current form of democracy.
As for media ownership, well there are strict EU regulations surrounding this and any proposals or changes in this arena will also have to pass mustard with Brussels and since we’ll be kicking them in the nads financially they won’t be too keen giving us any slack.
Bank Bailout
One huge flaw in all these policies is that there is no commitment to go back in any way on what most of us consider to be Not Our Debt.
There is nothing in either document that declares the bank bailout to be unjust and unacceptable. There is nothing said about the ongoing debt that this country has been saddled with, no statement saying they will declare this debt to be odious.
…….
Overall both documents are purely aspirational (almost utopian) and one hinges (and falls) on the other while the other hinges (and falls) on serious changes within the eurozone which aren’t going to happen either for a long time (or never) or else not without serious concessions and compromises from us (like surrendering more sovereignty and/or losing our neutrality etc).
I would say these frameworks are more skeletons that are seriously in need of having some meat on them.
Irish Water Ltd
What Right2Change actually say about IWL is that they’ll abolish it within 100 days but then they say they’ll set up another version of IWL like a Bord Uisce Eireann kinda thing but that begs several questions:
What about all the current employees of IWL? Redundancy packages, pensions etc.
What about the contracts IWL has already entered into?
Have they costed dismantling IWL?
Where will they get the money to fund the dismantling of IWL?
Do they have a costing for setting up an alternative?
How will they fund that?
None of these questions are asked so none are answered instead there are more aspirations but what will actually happen is that we will have hand-wringing and We Are Where We Are / There Is No Alternative / the previous government…etc.
While Right2Change are not formally fielding any candidates for the next general election they are acting as an umbrella organization looking for independents and parties to sign up to their policy frameworks – this neatly bypasses the formality of actually setting up a political party of their own.
It must also be pointed out that most of our unions were silent after the last financial meltdown and were mute during the bank bailout and subsequent surrender of sovereignty to the Troika while unions in Greece, Italy, France and Spain were mobilising mass rallies to protest the bailouts.
Now we see a time of discontent among many state and semi-state workers over the losses they incurred due to ‘reforms’ forced upon us by the Troika and those same unions are being called upon to stand up for their members (the same unions that told the same workers that they had to accept the Troika reforms) so we’re looking at multiple disputes escalating into strike action.
Sinn Fein
Fliuch has never supported or endorsed any political party and this remains our policy. With the recent news of a voting pact being set up within Right2Change groups anyone subscribing to Right2Water are by default supporting Sinn Fein – that’s your choice – we will continue to promote non-aligned independents as the best choice for now.
Conclusion
All of this combined seems completely self-serving and dishonest on many levels and any local anti-water tax group that has signed up to Right2Water (and by default Right2Change) really needs to think about where they were, where they are now, and where they want to be, as opposed to where Right2Water wants you to be..
Noel for Fliuch.
Source: http://www.fliuch.org/right2waterright2change-policy-and-fiscal-frameworks/
