“There has been no delivery yet on whistleblowing legislation. Indeed the Labour Party presented such legislation when in opposition in 1999. The non renewal of Ms Bayliss’s contract is a loss to the psychiatric care sector and cannot but be seen as a vindictive response by the HSE, who part fund her post, to her role in exposing the mistreatment of patients.

“Similarly a member of staff in Blanchardstown Hospital has been the subject of a disciplinary hearing for allegedly sharing information related to cuts with the Defend Blanchardstown Hospital campaign.

“Whistleblowers don’t just require protection but active encouragement. More timely whistleblowing by decent people in the financial sector, the Catholic church, the nursing homes, in the Garda Siochana and many other places would have well served us in recent years.”

The workers are victims of the private equity vulture company, Lion Capital, which in the most callous way planned to walk away from its workforce to maximise its profit, handing it over to another company which will be equally ruthless, and treating these workers in the most disgusting fashion. This is capitalism red in tooth and claw and must be challenged.

Fine Gael and Labour Party Deputies come here and champion workers. They are the people who make and stand over the laws. For a change, let us have emergency laws to allow workers to receive their rights and to stop these gangsters behaving in this gangster-like fashion.

I call on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and its leaders to come out of hiding and meet fire with fire. They should mobilise the power of working people in the country to stand together with the Vita Cortex and La Senza workers. Workers standing together will show the power they have, forcing the Government to act and these companies to pay what they should.

“I and my party colleagues support the action taken by the EBS workers 100%. A clear distinction must be made between the obscene rewards still given to the senior management in Ireland’s banks and the hard won pay and conditions of the ordinary employees.

“The strike by the EBS workers clearly falls into the latter category. The 13th month payment was a modest but important concession won by EBS workers 45 years ago to supplement a basic salary range which today amounts to €18,000 to €34,000, in other words below the average industrial wage.

“When I called upon Minister Noonan in the Dáil last week to intervene and give his consent to the 13th month payment he scandalously attempted to put the EBS workers in the same category as the top bankers who, incidentally, in the case of EBS received bonuses this year thanks to an exemption stood over by this government.

“The strike is a warning to senior management and the government that these workers have had enough. If there is no movement from the employer further action will likely be needed to place the necessary pressure on the employers.

“This dispute has to be understood in a wider context of an assault on the jobs and conditions of ordinary workers across the entire financial sector since the crisis began. The employers and government are opportunistically using the crisis and the justifiable anger that exists among the wider public towards the banks and financial institutions to implement sackings and cuts.

“A fighting response is needed and the lead from UNITE and the IBOA is vital in that regard. The EBS workers have set a good example to others.

“The Socialist Party will continue to give the EBS workers every practical support we can until the workers win back the payment they are rightfully due.”

For 45 years workers in the company were paid their annual wages in 13 equal instalments. Therefore, after nine years of service, a worker on a gross income of €30,000 would receive 13 instalments of €2,308, before tax deduction. The 13th instalment was paid in December, before Christmas. For decades this was accepted by everybody to be part of the basic wage and not as a Christmas bonus. It was consolidated into the wage de facto.

On 6 December, possibly as the Minister was on his feet in this Chamber announcing the budget, the workers were informed that their 13th instalment was not going to be paid. They had expected this payment the very next day in a pay packet. Obviously, they had planned for Christmas and had already spent the money on their families’ Christmas preparations, etc. They were totally reliant on the payment, given they are very low-paid or middle-paid workers. This is a devastating blow.

A loan facility at 12.5% interest offered to the workers by the management of EBS as an alleged compensation adds insult to the injury. It is because of this great outrage and the injustice the workers feel that they have called a strike on December 20. If it goes ahead, another day’s pay will be lost by those workers.

Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us but I understand the Department of Finance made that decision by virtue of powers invested either in the Department or in the Minister himself, in conjunction with AIB. In addition, senior managers on €90,000 a year who had the same arrangement are not having their 13th instalment withdrawn – not that the measure would be justified if they were.

On behalf of those workers I ask the Minister to go into immediate conclave with officials and management of AIB and EBS to ensure this decision is reversed.

Today, however, there was devastating news. Staff in the hospital received a memo stating that 12 of 31 beds in the acute Laurel ward are closed with immediate effect and a surgical day ward with 24 beds will shortly be closed for two weeks and will return with only 8 of the 24 beds. This means that 30 to 40 day procedures will now be reduced to ten or 13. This is devastating news for the staff, the patients and especially for those suffering on waiting lists, and it arises from the most draconian cuts. In 2009 the hospital had a budget of €104 million; this year that budget is €84 million, a devastating 20% cut. The HSE acknowledges this is one of the best and most efficient hospitals in the country. In what is termed “activity” it has returned 4% over target and is supremely successful, but now it is being hammered into the ground with enormous consequences for the sick and suffering who languish for longer periods on waiting lists.

We are told that NewEra will advise on, and oversee, a restructuring of the semi states and will work with the Minister for public Service and Reform on the sale of assets.

In reality NewEra is being set up to privatise these public enterprises. That is crystal clear from the Fine Gael document dating back to early 2010 which declares baldly, ‘We will look to sell ESB International, Bord Gais and ESB PowerGen & Supply when market and other conditions are appropriate.’

This large scale push for privatisation is being propelled relentlessly by the EU/IMF/ECB. Invited into Ireland last November by the Fianna Fail/Green government, the so called Troika was supposed to come to the assistance of the Irish people in their hour of need. Their main agenda, however, has been to salvage European bankers and speculators from their disastrous gambling in the Irish property bubble when they lent tens of billions to Irish developers and banks in the hope of a quick profit.

Having got the previous and current governments to capitulate utterly to their demands that the Irish people should be made to pay the massive bad debts for which they had no responsibility whatever. Now the Troika wants a further instalment of its insatiable neoliberal agenda which is to force maximum privatisation of state assets.

The IMF has a long and inglorious record in using its clout to exert pressure in the interests of major transnational corporations. In the 1980s and early 1990s, it was involved in what were known as Structural Adjustment Programmes in many African and Latin American countries which had debt difficulties. Pretending to be involved in the interests of the poorest populations on the globe, in reality the IMF acted like shock troops for Western capitalism.

It insisted on wholesale cuts to social and educational programmes which benefitted the poorest and dictated that public services and enterprises be handed over to multinational corporations. This policy left a trail of social and economic destruction in its wake.

It would be bad enough to try and force the sale of our State enterprises but worse the Troika is insisting that a substantial part of the proceeds goes into the black hole of banking debt. In other words it is almost literally like the selling off of the family solver to pay the family creditors except in this case the debts did not originate with the family members.

Semi state companies could play a key role in rescuing the Irish economy from the dire consequences of the policies of austerity being imposed on our people in order to channel their resources to rescuing the big financial gamblers . The savage assault on incomes and living standards has meant a drastic shrinking in the domestic economy and this is what is causing the live register of unemployed and seriously underemployed people to veer toward half a million. These companies now employ over 40,000 workers. However they could be developed in a way that would increase those numbers massively.

The government wants to sell off substantial parts of the ESB. Instead this company should be used to channel major investment infrastructural projects around the country. This could be in the area of alternative energy generation or related activities that could see workers of many different skills taken off the dole.

Among the sectors of infrastructure that the government would like to target for privatisation is our water production and supply service. Already it has been decided to remove responsibility for water from the local authorities and put it in the hands of one national company to be called Irish Water. The government has also announced the imposition of a water tax within the next few years. This is blatant preparation for the handing of our water distribution systems over to big business operators.

The result of these privatisations if carried through would not be radically improved services for the majority of the people. What we would have are severe rises in prices as the privateers sought a profit on their investments on the backs of ordinary people.

The trade union Unite has expressed its total opposition to the government’s privatisation programme. It has also stated its intention to fight any forced privatisation in the ESB with industrial action. Workers throughout the economy and indeed the personal customers of the ESB should join in this resistance and leave the government in no doubt but that a substantial numbers of citizens will fight to maintain public ownership but also to turn the publicly owned companies into democratically run engines of recovery for jobs and communities.

The Department of Finance Press brief’s opening sentence seemed innocuous enough, stating that the group would “provide advice on the proper stewardship of state assets and on opportunities for the better use of those assets.”

The real intent, however, could not be disguised when the very first Term of Reference reads: “To consider the potential for asset disposals in the public sector, including commercial state bodies, in view of the indebtedness of the State.” And in case that wasn’t clear enough Term Number Two goes: “To draw up a list of possible asset disposals.”

To make sure that these Terms of Reference mean exactly what they say, Minister Lenihan put his very own wolf in wolves’ clothing in charge of their implementation. Following his previous recommendations – through the report of the so called Bord Snip Nua – for savage cuts in virtually all public services, UCD economist Colm McCarthy is Lenihan’s best man to take out the semi states. Can there be any doubt that this neo liberal academic will advocate anything other than the selling off of substantial tranches of public assets in enterprises such as the ESB, Dublin Airport Authority, CIE, An Post and Coilte?

Do we need any more evidence that this government lives in an upside down world where it takes into public ownership, via NAMA, the enormous property related debts racked up by cowboy speculators and their bankrollers, while preparing the ground for the selling off of crucial state assets? It bails out reckless native gamblers through multiplying the national debt while planning to put into the hands of international gamblers vital infrastructure which contributes annually hundreds of millions of euro in dividends to the exchequer and employs tens of thousands of workers in relatively decent jobs.

We have been here before. Piloted by Minister Lenihan’s aunt, former Minister for Public Enterprise Mary O’Rourke, the privatisation of Telecom Eireann graphically shows what comes first in the priorities of venture capitalists who get their hands on public assets. Like the ESB and Bord Gais, it was a profitable net contributor to the Irish exchequer when state owned, albeit bureaucratically and inefficiently run at the top, before the then Fianna Fáil led government sold us what we already owned.

The majority of ordinary people who bought modest amounts of shares were burnt by the big players who waited for a collapse in share prices before moving in and taking over. That share price collapse took place during a boom let us remember. What price would the various utilities fetch now in the midst of a recession?

Eircom subsequently passed through the hands of several highly leveraged venture capitalists none of whom sufficiently developed the necessary infrastructure. Now Ireland stands out as a laggard in the developed world in terms of the poor levels of broadband coverage.

These commercial semi-state companies and others which have gone the way of Eircom were set up in the early decades of this State precisely because the weak indigenous capitalists were incapable of developing the infrastructure. These assets were built up with public investment to a position where they are seen as ripe for asset striping by private interests. Why should we have the slightest confidence that the international financiers that have landed the world in a spectacular crisis in their lust for super profits would act differently if they got their hands on more of our infrastructure?

Our public enterprises should not be privatised but strengthened and developed further. This means ending the bureaucratic logjams that exist in some, and democratizing all, by bringing their workers to the heart of organising these enterprises. It means democratically established boards – including their customers – to run them. This would mean taking out the array of hacks appointed by government because of their connection with one or other of the establishment political parties. It means slashing the obscene salaries of the current top brass, replacing them if necessary with people who wish to serve society while earning a decent wage, without wishing to ape the greed evident in the top echelons of private banking and industry.

Like Fianna Fail, Fine Gael also wants privatisation of public assets which begs the question where the Labour Party will stand in a Coalition government.

The workers in all of the commercial, semi-state companies must learn the lessons of what has befallen the staff of Eircom, Irish Sugar and Aer Lingus post-privatisation and ready themselves for a fight to defend their jobs and the services they provide. And working people generally should stand four square with them.

It is callously throwing hundreds of thousands of people, especially the old and the sick, to the mercy of the wolves in the insurance and finance markets of the world, for whom private corporate profit is the first consideration.

It does really beggar belief that the government is planning another instalment of a neo-liberal agenda which is utterly discredited as the economic crisis rages worldwide as a result of these policies. It is particularly sickening that the proposal is to put Irish patients at the mercy of the insurance and financial markets whose reckless gambling caused the disaster of toxic debt around the world.

Minister Harney, by underfunding the public health system has done everything she can to force people into taking out private health insurance. But the recent trend has been of people pulling out of private insurance in the context of job losses and other hardships.

The case for a unified comprehensive public health care system funded by progressive taxation and free at the point of use, eliminating wasteful competition, advertising and a multiplicity of competing administrations has never been stronger.

I support the defence of the 900 jobs in VHI and would propose that workers in the private insurance sector be integrated into the public health care system rather than further adding to the swollen dole queues.

Deputy Kenny boasted to his EPP colleagues in April 2009 in Warsaw, regarding the Lisbon Treaty, that he would “lead the campaign for a YES vote in Ireland when the issue is put to our people for a second time later this year.” Either Deputy did not know what he was asking the Irish people to vote for or he is deceiving them now.

As I pointed out in an article that I wrote in Village Magazine during the Lisbon Campaign last autumn:

“. . . .the Irish people must be strongly alerted to new proposals in the Lisbon Treaty, which along with provisions in the existing treaties, would substantially reduce their democratic control over measures that could be taken to address such crises. [regarding budget deficits and borrowing - JH]

“Lisbon clearly hands far more power to deal with deficits and borrowing to the EU Commission and out of the control of individual Member States and their people. This change can have very far reaching implications. The current Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government is implementing a policy of “slash and burn” as far as public services and the living standards of working people are concerned. They refuse to embark on a policy of major investment into public projects which could be used as a lever to halt job losses, create new jobs and reverse the growing, catastrophic level of unemployment.

“However, there could be governments in the near future which would be forced to take such a path in response to massive pressure and mobilisation of working people and the unemployed. This would require flexibility in the size of the deficit and borrowing requirements. If Lisbon is passed, the EU Commission would do all in its power to block such a move, no matter what the big majority of citizens might want. Under the current treaties the EU Commission can merely make recommendations to the Council of Finance Ministers that some action be taken where a Member State has a high deficit and borrowings. A Protocol attached to Lisbon for the future fixes a maximum allowable Budget deficit of 3% of Gross Domestic Product and borrowing of 60% of GDP.

“The Lisbon changes enshrined in the new Article 126 (TFEU) strengthens the hand of the Commission to demand of the Ministers of Finance strong action to force governments to comply with EU requirements. Henceforth where it is decided that a Member State has breached the guidelines, the Council of Finance Ministers ‘shall adopt’ recommendations from the EU Commission “with a view to bringing that situation to an end within a given period.” These recommendations can be “to invite the European Investment Bank to reconsider its lending policy toward the Member State concerned.” This is a direct threat that the EU will use its power to block loans for investment to such a Member State. Other sanctions are “to require the Member State concerned to make a non-interest-bearing deposit of an appropriate size with the EU until the excessive deficit has, in the view of the Council, been corrected” and “to impose fines of an appropriate size.”

One would look in vain on the Fine Gael website for any past reference to the Growth and Stability Pact. The process under discussion at EU level is simply making the above Lisbon provision a reality. Fine Gael cannot shirk its responsibility along with the rest of the political establishment who hid this undemocratic feature of the treaty from the people during the referendum debate.

We have witnessed in recent weeks the unprecedented public intrusion by the Commission and Chancellor Merkel in particular, who along with the IMF, are demanding such attacks in Greece. Today, a further strengthening of EU powers over eurozone Member State’s budgetary policy are under discussion.

As the Socialist Party warned during the Lisbon debate, if even a mildly progressive government was elected promising to implement policies aimed at protecting pay and public services, it would find itself subjected to an intervention by the EU authorities and right-wing eurozone finance ministers demanding the implementation of their policies instead.

This Fianna Fáil/Green government is far from progressive but rather a willing agent of the capitalist markets. They will welcome the measures under discussion as they will use EU Commission diktats as an alibi when faced with opposition from working people and the unemployed to their policies.

Many working people across Europe will ask themselves what type of democracy we live in when the conditions people face and the policies they desire to maintain and improve their living conditions count for nothing when compared to the demands of the market. The intensification of attacks on working people is bound to fuel major organised opposition and industrial action in the period ahead.

It comes on the back of a campaign of harassment and disciplinary action against a number of union activists in the garage by the company. This action has been followed up by the stripping from three democratically elected shop stewards in the garage, their facility for carrying out their union duties.

The legalistic excuses of the NBRU leadership to justify their collaboration with the employers do not wash. Facing a further round of cost cutting, it appears the company and the union leadership want to remove potential active oppostion from among the workforce.

Evidently the leadership of NBRU like Dublin Bus management would like a quiet life regardless of the future impact on jobs, pay and conditions in Dublin Bus. I call for the immediate re-reinstatement of Eugene McDonagh to his job and to the NBRU executive and the reinstatement of shop steward facilities in Harristown that have been taken away from Rory Colman, Owen McCormack and Colm Brady.

I support the campaign by ordinary NBRU members to support their victimised colleagues and by rank and file members of the NBRU to democratically take ownership over the direction the union.

“This relentless process of liberalisation totally ignores the impact on workers and customers as well as the social functions of public postal services. The EU postal sector is a worth €94 billion and should be kept in full state ownership as a valuable public resource. Democratic control, worker and customer consultation are the answers if reform is needed in such a sector” he said.

Calling postal liberalisation a good example of market failure, Dutch MEP Dennis de Jong said “there’s no point having three competing companies delivering post three times a day” and spoke of the myth of the shrinking postal services market. “The propaganda effort being mounted by the Commission only reflects the opinions of multinationals, not customers or workers”.

Concluding the main points German MEP Sabine Wils emphasised the group’s solidarity with Greek workers in their fight against the destruction of the public sector. “The GUE/NGL will keep working to gain broader support to protect public services both within and outside the European Parliament” she said “extra-parliamentary forces are extremely important, and we will maintain our support for organisations and trade unions in their fight against deregulation”.

However, it wasn’t just the government – whose survival depended on the outcome of the vote – that was involved. Fine Gael and the Labour Party were in on the act of course, as was IBEC, the organisation for Irish big business.

No sooner were the referendum results in however, than a general rowing back began. The posters about jobs weren’t referring to any specific policy or initiative to create actual jobs, it was all about a ‘context’ we are now being told. Voting ‘Yes’ would create a context ‘favourable’ to job creation.

Unfortunately the European context in which this ‘favourable context’ is promised, is anything but favourable. Twenty one million people are unemployed in the European Union – up five million in one year. Smaller countries with a similarity to Ireland, like the Baltic States for example, are imploding economically.

Nor are the activities of the EU Commission giving any great cause for hope. It’s most recent foray into the job creation area was to approve a bribe of 43 million by the Polish government to the Dell corporation to further its profit lust by abandoning workers in Limerick and going for cheaper labour elsewhere.

Rather than expect anything positive from the Lisbon Treaty results in the way of job creation, apparently we should instead be grateful that the ‘Yes’ vote prevented a stock market collapse. That is according to unidentified traders in the business pages of one pro Lisbon newspaper.

And it appears that this hypothetical prevention of a hypothetical collapse is about as good as it will get.

However, it appears that the ‘Yes’ vote did not bring about the prevention of an increase in the cost of borrowing. Readers will remember dire warnings by Bloxham Stockbrokers that a ‘No’ vote would cost the State, first 200 million, and then a massive 3 billion, in increased interest payments to bondholders as they would be worried about our ‘commitment to remain at the heart of Europe.’

Unfortunately, a few days after the result of the Referendum, apparently our telling Europe how much we wanted to cling to its bosom wasn’t good enough for the parasites in the financial markets. The cost of our borrowing rose anyway as the National Treasury Management Agency prepared to raise more to meet the increasing State deficit. ‘This is not what we were expecting’, said one financial commentator. Indeed!

It is a sign of the establishment’s servility to the markets that the dire threats made to the Irish people were not challenged by any arm including the media. The warnings were left hanging there. Nor was there any stern or widespread questioning of the promises.

However as the smoke of the Lisbon battle fades away, survivors can be expected to seek fulfilment of the promises of jobs. That will challenge a government hell bent on slashing living standards and services because such a policy cuts jobs rather than create them. The Fine Gael and Labour parties which also signed their names to the promissory notes in the course of the campaign should also be challenged.

Others need to be questioned about the claims they made for the Lisbon Treaty also. Those trade union leaders and the Labour Party who promised a major improvement in workers’ rights if Lisbon is ratified with the Charter of Fundamental Rights attached, must be held to account

There are four groups of workers who are currently on strike in Ireland who have a particular interest in this. They are workers at Manor Park Nursing Homes in County Longford, Mr Binman workers in Tipperary, as well as Coca Cola workers and MTL dockers. All are out – some for many months – resisting attacks on their wages and working conditions.

These workers might rightly ask whether any change will come in a situation where their lives are being turned upside down as a result of employers demanding severe wage cuts and worse working conditions. Surely, putting workers under these grave pressures, including by massively profitable companies like Coca Cola, should be outlawed. Because if workers’ rights mean anything, then it is to be entitled to maintain a reasonable job with decent conditions.

The promised transformational effect on workers rights contingent on the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty certainly seems not to have rung many bells in Brussels as of yet. At a meeting the day before yesterday Aof coordinators of the Employment and Social affairs Committee of the European Parliament, there was no mention of factoring in a major, or even a minor, discussion on the implications of the revolutionary advances in workers’ rights following ratification of Lisbon. Surely an oversight?

Chairman, I opposed the Lisbon referendum from a left and socialist perspective and reject the intervention of xenophobes and right wing forces. But it wasn’t a victory for democracy, what happened in Ireland in the referendum.

The Irish people were threatened by a major coalition of the political establishment, big business, most of the capitalist press and the EU Commission, that if they voted no, they would be economically isolated, they would be punished by the European Union, there would be flight of capital and investment.

And they were told that if they voted Yes, there would be jobs, investments and recovery – all falsehoods. The Irish government’s duplicity was shown by the fact that it asked the management of Aer Lingus to postpone until today, after the referendum, the announcement of 700 savage job cuts in Aer Lingus.

Now the EU commission intervened continually, interfered in the process. The three Presidents are not here, but I want their representatives to ask them for a reaction to the following scandal for me. EU Commissioner Tajani for Transport spent a full day travelling around Ireland on a Ryanair jet with the chief executive of that multinational campaigning for a Yes. He is the regulator of transport supposed to protect consumers and workers. He is hopelessly compromised by going around with the Chief Executive of one of the biggest corporations supplying transport. What is your answer to that?

Also, the last point, Mr. Chairman, there is speculation that Mr. Tony Blair will be a new President of the EU Council. Let us be clear, Mr. Tony Blair is a war criminal…. Mr. Blair must not be appointed as the President of the EU.

Last week CEO Christoph Mueller cynically circulated an e-mail to all staff promoting the Lisbon treaty. In it he made reference to a Yes vote securing the future of the company and employment in Ireland. He made these claims knowing that within a few days he was going to announce massive job losses and further cuts in pay

This is the race to bottom plain and simple. Mr Mueller’s reference to and end to ‘legacy’ work practices is a code word for breaking up what remains of the decent conditions won through decades on the back of trade union organisation. An active and serious response is needed by SIPTU and especially IMPACT whose members will feel the brunt of these attacks. It should be clear to the both union leaderships that nothing we give up will ever be enough for the employers in Aer Lingus who keep coming back for more. It’s time to make a stand

Yesterday, Joe Higgins raised this issue at the European Parliament, making it clear that the Irish government asked Aer Lingus to delay the announcement of these savage attacks until after the Lisbon referendum. This underlines the extreme cynicism of the establishment’s campaign for Lisbon. They promised jobs and economic recovery if the Treaty was passed. Yet, they knew that plans were prepared for almost 700 job cuts and up to 30% of wage cuts at Aer Lingus.

These attacks demonstrate the emptiness of their referendum promises. It is clear that the neo-liberal policies common to the European Union and the Irish government will not result in economic recovery, instead they result in further attacks on working conditions.

Last year Lisbon was rejected because people feared the consequences of the changes it brings to the EU and because of a distrust of the political establishment. For a majority this time around the actual Treaty and its contents were secondary to the economic crisis.

In a well-prepared and financed campaign, the political and business establishment left no stone unturned. There was the carrot, “Yes to Jobs”, Yes for “Recovery”, but then also the stick with threats that a rejection of the Lisbon Treaty for a second time would lead to economic disaster.

As Joe Higgins commented, fear was at the heart of the Yes campaign. The idea was spread that the chief executives of the hugely profitable multinationals were at Dublin airport with their suitcases packed ready to flee in the event of a no vote.

In company after company bosses intervened, by email and directly, with their workforces calling for a yes vote. Any pretence of balance in the media was ended and in the last week of the campaign 65% of articles on Lisbon argued for a yes vote with only 15% supporting the no side.

With a week to go polls indicated that of those who had made up their minds, 60% were yes and 40% were no. However, it seems those who made up their minds in the last week went overwhelmingly to the yes side on the basis of the crisis in the economy.

The yes campaign played up the idea that a rejection of Lisbon for a second time would sideline Ireland in the EU and the idea of a two track EU with Ireland on the outside was pushed by government ministers. Given that more than 70% of people believe that Ireland is economically better off in the EU plus their fears that the economic crisis would worsen it is understandable that a majority decided to vote yes.

It is ironic that at this point the people who caused the economic crisis, big business and the capitalist political establishment in Ireland and the EU, where actually able to use the crisis to get Lisbon passed.

There are some parallels with the vote in the 2007 general election. Then, a significant portion of people voted for Fianna Fail, in the absence of any real alternative, in the hope that voting for the same government may help maintain economic growth.

Fianna Fail’s support has fallen through the floor since then, to historic lows and now in a complete reversal of that election, more than 80% disapprove of this hated government. Likewise the basis of this yes vote will disappear.

This will turn out to be a pyrrhic victory. Lisbon won’t aid any economic recovery in Ireland or Europe. In fact it will be used to make ordinary people pay a very heavy price for the crisis in the years ahead. The lie about economic recovery combined with the bullying methods of the yes campaign will come back to haunt the establishment and will deepen the anger in society.

That one third of voters rejected the Treaty for a second time is significant, given the huge campaign that the establishment ran with the support of Labour and a majority of trade union leaders.

It is clear from the figures that in middle class and more wealthy areas, support for Lisbon was 90% plus. In contrast, amongst working class people the vote was more evenly split but in many areas large majorities, once again, rejected Lisbon. Working class people who voted yes did so with little enthusiasm and without in any way diminishing their opposition to the government.

In terms of the treaty itself, the biggest single issue in the campaign was probably workers rights’. This reflected the opposition to attacks on jobs, pay and conditions but also is a compliment to the role of the Socialist Party and in particular our MEP, Joe Higgins. Joe was the clearest and most effective leader of the no campaign.

The Socialist Party fought a very strong no campaign with thousands of posters and over half a million leaflets, on the issues of workers’ rights, democratic rights, defence of public services and opposition to militarism.

Whatever effect that the Lisbon result has in strengthening the hand of big business can be overcome by mobilising the power of the working class against the attacks on jobs, pay and public services.

Out of the inevitable struggles in the months ahead, the need for a real alternative to the crisis and capitalism will become much clearer to many people and will create a huge opportunities to build support for a socialist alternative.

The sight of Antonio Tanjani on a whistle-stop tour of the country with Michael O’Leary campaigning for a Yes vote has removed any remaining shred of impartiality. That the European Commission would interfere in the debate in Ireland in this manner is a disgrace. It is a ploy aimed at increasing the pressure on the Irish people to vote Yes.

This tour seriously compromises Tanjani’s position as European Commissioner for Transport. Ryanair is one of the biggest airlines in Europe. It has already and may come into further conflict with the European Commission. It puts the Commissioner for Transport in an utterly compromised position to have travelled around Ireland in a Ryanair plane, campaigning alongside Michael O’Leary.

I have written a letter to the President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, demanding that Tanjani be dismissed from his position on the grounds of his position being so compromised.

Those in the leadership of the trade union movement who are calling for a Yes vote should ask themselves why Mr. O’Leary is pumping hundreds of thousands of euro into campaigning for a Yes vote. It is certainly not because he believes that Lisbon will improve workers’ rights. It is because the anti-worker agenda which Mr. O’Leary typifies lies at the heart of the Treaty.

Instead of putting blame for the economic catastrophe where it firmly lies, with the government, bankers and big builders he joins the establishment chorus in saying that people like myself in the Socialist Party and others who are arguing for an alternative to the neo-liberal disaster pose a threat to this already failing economic system.

The Lisbon treaty is a relic of neo-liberal capitalism, the economic crash rather than being an argument in favour of passing the treaty second time round is an argument for it to be rejected not just in Ireland but across Europe

The latest opinion poll which shows a strong howing for the ‘No’ side in the face of media bias and huge money being spent on the ‘Yes’ side for their scare tactics should give deputy Gilmore some pause for thought as it also demonstrates that like the previous Lisbon poll he is out of touch with a sizable portion of his own Labour Party support base who are intent on rejecting this treaty.