Real change, not spare change

Solidarity General Election Manifesto – standing as part of People Before Profit-Solidarity

Budget 2025’s once-off payments will soon be spent, but the chaos of our investment-starved health, education, childcare and transport systems remains. Still no affordable homes to rent or buy and countless carers and disabled people will continue to live in poverty.

Young people are being forced to Australia because of a housing crisis that is rooted in the political establishment’s privileging of corporate profits over people’s needs. Two billionaires now have as much wealth as the bottom 50% combined. Corporations are raking in €300 billion in yearly profits.

It’s high time for workers, young people and all the exploited and oppressed to unite and organise in solidarity against systemic injustice and inequality, and to demand real change – both in the upcoming General Election and beyond.

The real nature of FF and FG, propped up by the Greens is shown in:

Children with scoliosis denied life-saving care;

Autistic and disabled children without school places and denied their human rights as they languish on waiting lists;

4,419 children in emergency accommodation and 90,000 children in consistent poverty

Just €7.9 million extra to tackle gender violence in Budget 2025 – while €99 million gifted to cruel greyhound and horse-racing;

Israeli/US ammunition passes through Irish airspace and legislation to sanction Israeli settlements blocked by the Government.

And no real alternative from Sinn Féin:

Unfortunately, Sinn Féin has failed to fight on the issues affecting working people. Instead it has cosied up to the establishment. Its leaders shook hands with Joe Biden despite his consistent support for the genocide in Gaza. It has disgracefully leaned into anti-refugee rhetoric and passed anti-trans policy in the North. Its housing policy aspires to deliver affordable homes, but still relies on profit-hungry developers to build 70% – meaning they will not be genuinely affordable.

“To stand with Palestine is to be human” – Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist, has drawn the link between the destruction of ecosystems, imperialism and colonialism, and the capitalist system’s drive for profit.

From those rising up against Israeli state terror; to disability activists changing the course of the Care referendum; to Debenhams workers who challenged corporate greed; to the feminist and LGBTQ movements for bodily autonomy – the alternative to the problems we face lies in organising ‘people power’ from below into a new movement for real change.

The Socialist Party’s candidates are standing to aid the building of the same, as part of People Before Profit-Solidarity’s General Election challenge.

Solidarity / Socialist Party TD for Cork North Central, Mick Barry said that: “We wish to see the launching of a major united and genuine left movement in the General Election and beyond – uniting left-wing, pro-worker / trade unionist, pro-feminist and LGBTQ, disability justice, pro-Palestine and anti-racist campaigners who will stand implacably on the side of working-class and oppressed people.

Rejecting the logic of the system that puts corporate greed before human need – we are seeking to build a major new movement from below behind a programme for real change, not spare change.”

Emergency action to make housing a right, not a commodity

House prices continue to rise as an entire generation is locked out of owning a home. The average price of a house in Dublin in September 2024 is €437,125 and across the State the average is now €326,469. These prices are 30% higher than pre-pandemic prices!

Rental market prices also continue to rise, with no end in sight. Since the end of the Covid crisis, rents have risen 41% on average. Ever since the lifting of the eviction ban in March 2023, the numbers living in emergency accommodation have shot up – a record 14,429.

Many more are living in homelessness, e.g. couch surfing, direct provision and domestic violence shelters that are not included in the official emergency accommodation figures.

There’s huge wealth in this state – this demonstrates the rottenness of capitalism and the hand our government plays in ensuring we bear the brunt of its inhumanity. The urgency for young people, in particular, to mobilise around housing cannot be overstated.

We cannot allow ourselves to be exploited for the enrichment of local and multinational corporate landlords, including one in four government TDs who are landlords themselves. Ireland has become a magnet for vulture funds and cuckoo funds, due to Government policy.

The resources are there to provide homes for all, but the political will isn’t. We need to organise active campaigns in our communities, workplaces and colleges to ensure we get the action that is needed.

The solutions required to resolve this have not altered since the accommodation crisis began to take off over a decade ago. However the landlords, investment funds and developers have a stake in perpetuating this crisis and limiting the supply of affordable accommodation so as to keep prices high at our expense.

The market has failed. Even the government's target of 40k houses a year is not being met due to reliance on the private market. It is estimated that 70k houses a year are needed to meet demand.

Solidarity calls for:

Reinstate the eviction ban;
Strict rent controls – reduce and freeze rents to affordable levels;
Optimise the use of publicly-owned land for public building of social and affordable homes. The Land Development Agency estimates some 67,000 units could be built across 83 state-owned sites as an indication;
Bring suitable vacant land and property into public ownership to build social and affordable housing;
Requisition vacant units out of the hands of speculators to use for emergency accommodation;
Bring the major construction companies into public ownership to form a state construction company to build homes not for profit and ensure construction workers are paid union rates as a means to build 70,000 houses per annum to actually meet needs and overcome the housing crisis
Ban vulture funds and cuckoo funds from wholesale purchase of apartment blocks and housing estates at the expense of individuals and families with a genuine housing need;
Build culturally appropriate Traveller accommodation;
Levy the building industry for the remediation of major building defects which arose from a culture of ‘self certification’;
Democratic tenant management of Approved Housing Body Schemes and, where tenants demand it, bring such schemes into local authority management;
Curtailment of estate management fee regimes. Services that ordinarily provided for by the local authority should be made available to all communities;
Expand the local authorities’ capacity for proper maintenance and refurbishment of depleted council accommodation stock, particularly senior citizen accommodation.

Workers’ rights – it’s payback time for working people!

In 2022, €317.5 billion was recorded in corporate profits, an increase of over 24% on the previous year.

Since 2021 official inflation figures are 18.6% but those figures do not take full account of accommodation and childcare costs. What was experienced as a cost of living crisis by workers in the years since the pandemic has been a period of bonanza profits for big business.

Inflation and interest rates are down from their recent highs but working people still have massive ground to make up to restore and improve living standards and meet the massive costs of the basics such as accommodation, childcare and even food.

Workers need double-digit wage rises. This has been achieved in a minority of mainly private sector workplaces where workers, organised in their unions, have made bold demands for real pay increases and been prepared to back those demands up with action.

However, this has been more the exception than the rule. Workers are under-organised and the trade union movement leadership too conservative relative to the potential and the need that is out there.

The workforce in Ireland has grown to a record 2.7 million. However only one-third of these workers are in workplaces where there is a trade union presence or are covered by trade union agreements. Less than a fifth are actually members of trade unions.

Yet a study by the Geary Institute in UCD among non-unionised workers showed that 44% of those surveyed would join if the opportunity arose. That rose to 68% among young workers. If a strong organising approach was adopted by the trade union movement and if the union leadership broke with the routine of settling for low single-digit pay rises in workplaces where we are organised, it is clear that massive strides could be made.

The Socialist Party and Solidarity support the removing of all obstacles placed in front of the trade union movement for achieving this:

We stand for:

A €17 an hour minimum wage. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment already admits to this being the minimum rate of pay required for someone arriving to Ireland under the worker permit system if they are to survive;
End precarity and bogus self-employment. Too many employers, from RTÉ to Deliveroo and in the construction industry, have been getting away with having their employees wrongly classified as ‘self-employed’ and thereby enabling employers to dodge the minimum wage, holiday pay, statutory sick pay and employer social insurance contributions;
For guaranteed hours with permanent contracts for all workers. Workers are denied access to bank loans and mortgages unless they can show they have reliable hours and contracts of indefinite duration. Employers like Dunnes Stores have historically used fluctuating and unreliable hours as a means to divide and discipline employees. The Employment Miscellaneous Act 2018 providing for banded hours that the trade union movement campaigned for has improved the situation but we need to go further.
A four-day work week with no loss of pay. In decades and centuries past the standard working week was six days, then five and a half days before the five day working week was conquered through struggles in the postwar period. All these advances were made typically without loss of pay. Further advances in technology and worker productivity puts the four-day working week on the agenda.
Reduce the pension age to 60. A guaranteed decent pension for all. The crises in occupational pension funds and the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes can only be combated by instituting a state guaranteed unified occupational defined benefit scheme for all workers.
Pass the “Debenhams Bill”, campaigned for by former Debenhams workers that would boost workers' rights in a situation where their employer goes into insolvency.
No compulsory layoffs. Open up the books and take large job-shedding companies into public ownership, under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation to owners paid only on the basis of proven need.
Repeal the Industrial Relations Act. For the right to organise and effective action to defend workers from bosses attacks and call upon the active solidarity of fellow workers.
For a revitalised trade union movement that organises the unorganised and mobilises the power of its membership. Unions should be legally protected to access workers on site. All officials should be elected, subject to recall and live on the wages of the workers they represent.

Radical action to combat climate and biodiversity crises

Capitalism’s ruthless drive for profit is proliferating ecological crises, animal abuse, extreme weather events, and inequality between the Global North and South. Systemic destruction of ecosystems is perhaps the single-biggest argument for socialist change.

Over 80% of people in Ireland are concerned about climate change and support climate action. Climate protests by young people in 2017-2019 pushed the government to do more. But we are falling short of our targets and doing only a small fraction of what could be done. And new environmental threats loom: data centres now use 21% of electricity consumed in Ireland – more than all households.

The super-wealthy and powerful are still destroying the environment: since the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, the world's six largest banks have invested $6.9 trillion into fossil fuels. In Budget 2025, the government increased funding to animal abusing sports.

The government includes the Green Party, who many people voted for out of a genuine desire to see climate action. But this party's approach is to penalise the ordinary consumer by coming up with new carbon taxes, as if the cost of living crisis wasn't bad enough. The deposit return scheme symbolises this government's approach: an extremely small pay-out tacked on up-front, in the form of a voucher rather than cash, which appears to have been designed around not stepping on the toes of supermarkets. Another timid, market-based approach simply does not cut it, given the depth of the ecological crisis.

We believe in a different kind of environmental policy, one that goes after the super-rich and powerful corporations first and foremost – the ones who are actually most responsible for carbon emissions. Real climate action goes hand-in-hand with making life better for working people.

Free and expanded public transport
A rapid transition to renewable energy through public investment, along with a major public works project to retrofit existing buildings and housing
For a just transition, without regressive taxes or job losses -- a just transition would include the creation of tens of thousands of quality green jobs in retrofitting, infrastructure and public services that would all contribute to the public good
Take the fossil fuel companies and big agribusiness into public ownership under democratic control
An immediate and complete ban on LNG and any further investment in fossil fuel infrastructure. Keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Refuse collection and water services should be fully publicly owned – we support the Right2Water’s campaigning demand for a referendum to keep water entirely public.
Immediately halt the development of any more data centres. Restrict energy usage of current data centres -- prioritise domestic energy usage over supply to data centres
Implement emergency measures to halt the unprecedented crisis of biodiversity loss
Incentivise and empower farmers to transition from animal to vegetable agriculture, to reduce intensive monocultural farming and to act as stewards of the land
Introduce a dairy herd reduction scheme

Support Animal Rights:

Ban all bloodsports and puppy farming and end all subsidies to greyhound and horse racing. We will introduce legislation to ban hare coursing, fox hunting and animal shooting.
Ban the import and sale of real fur
Ban all animal circuses
Ban cruel practices in animal agriculture, especially in pig farming and poultry.
Ban live animal exports
Legally protect families with companion animals and pets from being denied housing
Increase the number of animal inspectors to 10 per county and empower them to relocate animals at risk of abuse
Recognise animal sentience in law
Establish an independent inquiry into disclosures in Dublin Zoo. Phase out animal breeding and import or export of animals in zoos.
Introduce humane management of deer herds using neutering not culling.

Value care and deliver disability justice

(i) Care, Disability & Autism Crises

Unwilling to accept the crumbs from the table of continued ableism and a shunting of care responsibilities onto the private family, rather than the state, disabled activists rose up in the spring of 2024 to deliver a ‘No’ in the care referendum. This display of disabled people power also forced the Government to scrap the ableist ‘Green Paper’ in 2024.

For people living with disabilities, including children and their carers, the situation gets worse and worse. Many parents have to apply for dozens of schools to find a place for a child who has autism. In schools, the support just isn't there.

Disabled activists have recounted the fear that they live in due to constant humiliating means-testing and questioning of their right to benefits. Carers being subjected to means-testing, including based on a partner’s income, deprives carers of independence and is innately sexist, given that most carers are female.

Workers in the care sector tend to be outsourced, irregular, low-paid, privatised – in a word, undervalued. This destroys continuity of care and pushes skilled, compassionate people to leave the country.

A capitalist mentality only values people according to their capacity to enable the elite in society to make a profit. In this way, the capitalist system innately fosters ableism. Disabled people themselves who have risen up for their own rights are the best retort to this ableism. Every single human being has the right to flourish, and to be both cared for and valued. The wealth and resources are there for this to happen – let’s demand it. Socialist change also means building a society in which care is valued and is centred – the antithesis of the ruthlessness contained in the exigencies of market capitalism.

Parents, carers, and disability activists can make a massive impact in this General Election. We must ramp up the pressure for recognition and rights. Neurodivergent and disabled children cannot be treated as second-class any longer, and carers and disabled people cannot languish in poverty.

Scrap the means-test for Carers and Disability Allowances and raise payments to the level of the PUP immediately – lift disabled people and carers out of poverty, including introducing additional payments to cover the real cost of being disabled
Carers to be paid a living wage, with full entitlements as workers
An appropriate school place for every child – SNAs, special classes, therapists in every school
Emergency action to clear CDNT waiting lists – AON waiting times are breaking disability legislation
Investment in the hiring and retention of hundreds of specialists to clear assessment of needs waiting lists for neurodivergent adults and children
Therapies to be provided to ensure the thriving of disabled and neurodivergent children and adults – a massive investment and expansion of public services in schools and the community

(ii) Childcare

During the pandemic, the profits of major childcare providers trebled, yet childcare is still out of reach for many. Expensive and inaccessible, privatised childcare is not working. New parents can face a wait of up to three years for creche places.

A massive source of stress for parents, the childcare crisis exacerbates gender inequality. The failure of the state to provide public childcare is predicated on sexist, outdated mores that continue to place the burden of care on women, and is a major contributing factor to the ongoing gender pay gap. More than half of couples with children say one of them has had to give up work due to the cost of childcare and in the majority of cases, it’s women who do so. The cost of childcare is particularly prohibitive for one-parent families, with over 86% of parents in this group being women. This excludes many of these parents from the paid workforce and further exacerbates poverty – one-parent families consistently suffer the highest rate of deprivation.

Childcare workers languish on unlivable, low wages. Less than 35% of areas across the country currently have crèche places available. Waiting lists for the same range from six months to more than three years. Up to half of crèches do not provide baby rooms, leaving parents with limited options when it comes to sourcing childcare for babies under one year. Up to a third of parents pay full-time fees due to a lack of half-day fee options being offered, even if they do not need the full hours.

All of this indicates the degree to which the privatised, for-profit model of childcare pursued by successive governments has to end. Commodifying childcare leads to inadequate, expensive and often inaccessible provision. Care for babies and children should be massively invested in – and this should be done via a comprehensive, public provision of childcare. The large for-profit childcare chains are raking in the profits while often slipping on the standards and exploiting their workers, while smaller community providers are often struggling to make ends meet.

Childcare providers and their workers have been protesting in their thousands in recent years. This movement needs to be expanded to centre childcare workers and their demands for a living wage, and to involve parents and children demanding a society that centres care, not profit. Ample wealth exists in this state - tax wealth and profits to fund public care for the young, the elderly, those with disabilities and health challenges.

We are campaigning for:

Scrap of all childcare fees, and a massive plan to expand quality childcare provision within a fully public, progressive, child-centred universal childcare system that is fully publicly-owned and funded, and free at the point of delivery;
Take the major private childcare businesses into public ownership and allow smaller private providers to opt into a fully public system;
Free afters-chool places for all who want them, organised publicly on school grounds
Unionise all childcare workers and immediately raise wages to a living wage;
Parents should be facilitated to spend time with their children – centre children, not profit including:
Both parents to receive 12-months leave on full pay during their child’s first two years – legislate to mandate employers to cover full pay for parents taking this leave to care for infants and toddlers;
Shorten the working week to four days with no loss of pay;
Put the needs of children and the environment before profit – local, public childcare provision and a shorter working week with no loss of pay are all green initiatives that create low carbon quality jobs and a reduction in carbon emissions, and enable primary care-givers to spend more time with their children.

(iii) Healthcare

638 patients were waiting on trolleys in a count done in March 2024. Hundreds of children are waiting years for surgery – hundreds of thousands of people are on other waiting lists. The HSE spends hundreds of millions a year on precarious agency workers, while hard work and poor pay drive healthcare workers overseas

First Varadkar, now Harris – two health ministers who failed and presided over scandals, but somehow went on to be Taoiseach. The establishment continues to feel no shame over the dysfunctional, underfunded, two-tier health system. This government's legacy on health is symbolised by scandals such as last year's horrifying report on Temple Street hospital, where children were rushed through incompetent surgeries. But despite scandals and crises – trolleys, waiting lists, understaffing – the HSE actually froze recruitment between October and July as a cost-cutting measure. The replacement of this freeze – the Pay and Numbers Strategy – is a continuation of the same, as workers in Fórsa and INMO have been pointing out in their lunch time protests.

We support the workers balloting for industrial action to take a stand for their right to work in a safely staffed environment. What a huge indictment of the Government that these workers are forced into taking action like this, despite a huge Budget surplus of billions. It is a political decision that sums up this Government’s legacy that they chose not to invest seriously in public health. Full solidarity to the campaign of health workers organised in Fórsa and INMO, and broadly.

What we stand for:

End privatisation in the health service;
A massive expansion of public healthcare to build a one-tier public health system, free at the point of use;
This includes free GP care and a major public investment allowing GPs to ‘opt-in’ to a fully public system;
Support healthcare workers organising for increased pay, for safe staffing and dignity at work and for investment in public health; support migrant nurses who are working as healthcare assistants to have their work permits upgraded – for the trade union movement broadly to mobilise to demand a massive investment in public health;
1,000 new public acute beds with the requisite staff and an additional 50 level 3 ICU beds;
Safe staffing levels and dignity at work for healthcare workers – raise wages, increase staffing levels, expand third-level course intake as a major plan to recruit and retain all necessary healthcare professionals;
Major overhaul and investment in public provision of mental health services to make the appropriate therapy and care accessible and available;
Ensure access to public care and therapies for those with eating disorders;
Eliminate all emergency department and hospital parking charges;
Contraception, abortion provision, IVF, sterilisation, HRT for menopause and gender-affirming care all must be integrated into a progressive, secular, public and free public health care
Invest in women’s health and breast health – the wait is two years after 50th birthday for their first breastcheck exam – emergency action to end this now and consider the possibility of younger screening;
Challenge medical misogyny and recognise the extra barriers facing women and people of colour accessing care – in maternal care in particular women of colour / POC and their babies suffer worse outcomes and special initiatives are needed to tackle this;
Bring staffing in public health teams to WHO recommended levels;
Invest in Mental Health Services to bring spending in line with Mental Health Reform recommendation of 10% of overall health budget by 2027;
End healthcare waiting lists and AON waiting lists for adults and
children;
End paternalistic, transphobic blocks to healthcare for trans people. Gender-affirming care to be made available to all who need it for free, via a GP led service. Fight the disinformation of the far-right that is seeping into the political establishment. Trans healthcare is life-saving and essential. Abolish the gate-keeping and outdated NGS. Trans healthcare to be provided via a GP-led, consent-based model which empowers trans people to take agency over their bodies and provides them with all the care and treatments they need;
Bring all major private hospitals, nursing homes and pharmaceutical companies into public ownership;
End church control of hospitals – for the complete separation of church and state – for full public ownership and control of the New National Maternity Hospital;
For a major public works programme to build and staff healthcare facilities – the National Children’s Hospital fiasco is down to the ease with which the political establishment will hand over money to private companies – end this waste and mis-use of public funds;

(iv) Education

In September 2024, universities received 30,000 more requests for student accommodation than were available. Almost 1/3 secondary school students feel they 'don't belong' there or are not listened to. Free schoolbooks policy does not cover tablets demanded by some schools. Class sizes are the same as they were 20 years ago. People across Ireland have been shaken by a new report into abuse in schools. The religious orders which controlled those schools in the past still control them today – 88% of primary schools still have a Catholic ethos.

Third-level education has given up any pretence of being a free public service, with costs spiralling between fees and accommodation. Primary and post-primary, supposedly 'free', are in fact beset by a range of costs that get lumped onto families. Teachers carry the burden of an ultra-heavy workload and young teachers especially deal with low pay and precarity, so that they struggle to get the job done. No wonder so many students are alienated from education.

What we stand for:

Free education for all – abolish the Leaving cert and replace the points system. Guarantee a third-level place for all who want one, with a living grant for all students;
Accessible, affordable student accommodation;
For real free education, funded centrally – no to 'voluntary contributions,' uniform costs, and the massive expense on books and tech – abolish third-level fees;
Reduce class sizes and end two-tier pay;
Special initiatives to recruit and retain teachers including a cost of living wage top-up and pay rises;
Special classes in every school and mental health supports on site – support all our autistic and disabled children to flourish and nourish the mental health of children and young people;
Progressive, objective, age appropriate and LGBTQIA inclusive sex education in all schools;
Secular, public education – no more Catholic church influence in public schools – make them fully public, integrated, mixed genders and backgrounds with an inclusive and child-centred ethos that actively challenges racism, LGBTQIAphobia, anti-Traveller prejudice and ableism;

(v) Full Separation of Church and State – solidarity with all survivors of church and state abuse

Full public tribunal into all schools on child abuse – no more whitewashing, no more piecemeal reports
Amend current redress scheme to include all adoptees and survivors
Lands and assets of the religious organisations amounting to billions should be seized by the state to financially compensate victims and survivors and to fund any further investigations
The records of implicated orders should be seized for criminal investigations
Schools run by these religious orders should be taken over by the state
We need separation of church and state – now

For a socialist feminist movement against gender-based violence and oppression

[CW: Femicide, sexual violence, abuse, violence against women & children]

Over 100 women in Ireland have been violently killed since 2012. In a Garda report from 2022 on domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence, when murders, manslaughters, and infanticides were examined, “on average over the last five years, where a female has been the victim… 79% were the victim[s] in a domestic abuse related incident.” Women’s Aid received a record number of disclosures in 2023. In February 2024, it was reported that over half of domestic violence shelters across the country were full.

The Socialist Party is a socialist feminist organisation. Our women and queer activists have been central to establishing ROSA – Socialist Feminist Movement as a diverse, multi-gendered left-wing, anti-racist socialist movement for feminist and LGBTQIA demands. ROSA and the Socialist Party have consistently highlighted and campaigned on the issue of men’s violence against women and queer people.

ROSA initiated the street protests across the state in response to the prioritising of a violent soldier’s career over the health of a young woman who he violently assaulted in 2024. In 2018, ROSA organised marches of thousands North and South, including 10,000 in Dublin as part of the ‘I Believer Her’ movement in response to the Belfast rugby rape trial.

ROSA also organised actions such as the Abortion Pill Bus which drove around the country openly flouting Ireland’s then abortion ban, as part of the successful Repeal and abortion rights movement. Ruth Coppinger, as well as being the first member of parliament in the world to take an abortion pill in front of the media to demonstrate their safety and the importance of their accessibility, has used every means at her disposal to not only highlight the issue of gender violence, but to actively build a struggle and movement to end it.

One of the most inspiring phenomenons of the 2010s was the new feminist and queer struggle wave that emerged – Repeal and Marriage Equality victories were part of that, as were MeToo and Ni Una Menos in Latin America.

The system is actively attacking so many of the gains won – abortion is being banned in countries it’s been legal in for decades; in a DCU study it showed how here, young boys are being targeted by unscrupulous Tech and Social Media conglomerates with misogynistic content that belittles and encourages sexual violence.

It’s clear that the struggle for gender equality has to be a left-wing and socialist struggle against this depraved system and its beneficiaries in the corporate elite who will profit from misogyny and genocide without batting an eyelid. We need socialist feminism, now more than ever.

Violence against women and queer people on the rise

The same ideas which aim to suppress the identities of LGTBQ+ people also reinforce gender roles for men and women, including an increase in a very harmful, macho caricature of masculinity. As violence against queer people escalates, so does violence against women.

Dangerous far-right actors have incited riots and violence against migrants, claiming to be protecting women and children from refugees and people of colour, when in reality, it is not race, or religion, or ethnicity that fuels violence against women, but misogyny, queerphobia and patriarchal ideas - and women and children are most likely to experience violence from people they already know, often within the home.

Even in this context of increased violence against women, there is very little recourse to seek help. Early this year, reports demonstrated that over half of the women’s refuges in Ireland were full and almost all refuges reported that women and children are staying in refuge for longer periods of time due to the lack of available housing across the country, and often entering homeless emergency accommodation as a result. The Government’s claim to have a zero tolerance approach rings hollow.

Ruth Coppinger, if elected, will lead the charge on fighting for the changes necessary to dismantle an inherently sexist judicial system – here’s her 10-point programme for Justice for Survivors:

Outlaw character references in cases of gender based violence and sexual violence. They can re-traumatise victims and sway judges to mitigate abuse;
Protect confidentiality - no access to counselling notes for defence legal team;
Provide Advocates and representation for complainants in the court process who are otherwise reduced to being State’s witnesses in their own case;
Compulsory training of the judiciary and juries regarding sexual and gender based violence. Outlaw rapes myths and victim blaming by defence lawyers in court cases;
Invest and recruit court personnel so that nobody waits more than a year for a sexual assault, rape or gender based violence case;
Education programme in schools, colleges (and wider society) to challenge misogyny and gender violence;
Introduce mechanism to recall and make accountable judges who make misogynistic and insensitive rulings;
Introduce ‘Valerie Law’ to block any parental or inheritance rights for those who kill spouses.
Femicide and intimate partner violence training for police;
Introduce Domestic Violence Register / ‘Jennie’s Law’ to make available information about anyone with a conviction for domestic violence.

Solidarity will also fight for:

An end to the three day waiting period for abortion seekers; the provision of accessible abortion services in all parts of the State; abortion on request, including after 12 weeks to uphold health and bodily autonomy; the full decriminalisation of abortion;
Massive investment to expand refuge spaces across the State for victims of domestic gender based violence and for full funding of gender violence services;
A major campaign to educate people about consent at all levels of education;
The trade union movement to really take up questions of men’s violence against women and queer people; Trade unions must also step up the fight for further advances in the workplace including the right to paid leave for menstrual health and menopause;
Against all forms of LGBTQIAphobia and racism – socialist feminism is always pro-trans and anti-racist.

LGBTQIA Equality and Freedom

A report by LGBT Ireland found that 75% of queer people here have been verbally abused due to their sexuality or gender identity while one in five has been punched, hit or physically attacked in public.

Ireland is ranked the worst out of 27 EU countries due to not only their decade long waiting lists but also the psychiatric evaluation we’re forced into through the National Gender Service (NGS). Trans people are asked violating, sexualised questions about their relationships, intimate lives and abuse/trauma. The NGS is a fundamentally broken system with countless obstacles designed to gate-keep trans people from medically transitioning.

The reality of trans healthcare can’t be separated from the deeply flawed UK Cass Report, which is now being used to restrict trans youth’s access to puberty blockers and their right to socially transition. Paul Moran, a psychiatrist with the NGS, was on the review team and has personal friendship with Hilary Cass, exposing the transphobia endemic to the Irish system. It’s deeply worrying that Sinn Féin has signed off on a vindictive and dangerous ban on puberty blockers in the North, one that’s informed by this flawed and transphobic review.

From marriage equality to gender recognition, important changes have been won by the determined campaigning of LGBTQ+ people. But this shouldn’t be used to cover up the real record of Ireland’s political establishment. Ireland has the worst provision of trans healthcare in the EU. Schools remain dominated by the Catholic Church and there is no guarantee of access to LGBTQ+ inclusive sex education for young people.

And now we face a growing right-wing backlash that targets LGBTQ+ people, both in Ireland and internationally. The media, politicians and an emboldened far right are pushing a moral panic based on fear and misinformation about trans people, drag queens and the ‘indoctrination’ of children.

Far-right activists are intimidating library workers for stocking LGBTQ+ books and stirring up panic over sex education.

Our programme for LGBTQIA equality and freedom is innate to our programme for change in health, education, and our socialist feminism broadly. A central demand is for trans healthcare:

End paternalistic, transphobic blocks to healthcare for trans people. Gender-affirming care to be made available to all who need it for free, via a GP led service. Fight the disinformation of the far-right that is seeping into the political establishment. Trans healthcare is life-saving and essential. Abolish the gate-keeping and outdated NGS. Trans healthcare to be provided via a GP-led, consent-based model which empowers trans people to take agency over their bodies and provides them with all the care and treatments they need

The rights the LGBTQIA movement have won can’t be taken for granted and to defend them, we need to get organised and build a new movement based on struggle and solidarity. We need a movement based on:

Solidarity: the same forces that are attacking LGBTQ+ rights are attacking women, migrants and people of colour. They are anti-worker and anti-tenant. We can fight these attacks by linking the struggles of LGBTQ+ people with a united struggle of all those oppressed and exploited by this system.
Mass Mobilisation: Pride should be a protest – we need to mobilise tens of thousands onto the streets to say no to the rising tide of LGBTQphobia. Workers in sectors like education and healthcare are at the frontline of many new homophobic and transphobic measures and can use their power as workers to withdraw their labour in the fight against them.
Anti-capitalism: While corporations and right-wing politicians put on a progressive face, the capitalist system they preside over is based on rampant inequality and oppression. This system in crisis is now fuelling a resurgence of the far-right. It’s a system based on the idealised nuclear family, rigid gender norms and it relies on bigotry and division to maintain control

Reject Division – refugee and migrant rights, anti-racism, building solidarity

Homes and services for all – anti-racism, not far-right division

Increasing attacks on asylum seekers and a general rise in racism against all migrants and people of colour including Irish people of colour are abhorrent.

It’s a context of intensifying fear and anguish of migrants and people of colour who are already suffering from daily instances of racism and xenophobia. It is only a matter of time before another migrant or person of colour is killed by far-right racist predators.

The system of global capitalism that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the far-right all defend is responsible for the very factors – war, famine, unemployment, lack of accommodation, climate change, grossly uneven development and exploitative economic relations – that give rise to involuntary movements of populations the world over, including young Irish people leaving this country. In other words, working-class people here and refugees and migrants the world over are victims of the same system.

The Government which has presided over a decade long housing crisis and has failed to invest in public health and education has given oxygen to the far-right. Simon Harris’s shameful comments linking an uptick in refugees with homelessness figures are indicative of an attempt to scapegoat the most vulnerable to detract from the Government’s own failings. It’s essential that this is rejected. We cannot accept a false competition for scarce resources between ordinary people when the super-rich and corporations have record wealth. All ordinary people must unite together to demand emergency investment in public housing and resources for everyone. This united approach is the only way we will make real change – and it’s also the most effective way of forcing investment in working class communities that have suffered decades of neglect by the state. A, ‘from below’ community response that demands this – and also seeks to welcome and integrate newcomers in the community – is absolutely essential.

The response of Sinn Féin, which has been to shift to a more right-wing position and embrace talking points virtually indistinguishable from the Government, has only served to bolster the far-right.

The Socialist Party and Solidarity are in favour of all on the left, including People Before Profit – Solidarity, other groups and individuals on the left etc., building a united front against the far-right. However, it can’t be one tailored to Sinn Féin who have politically buckled on a principled defence of refugee’s rights.

We need a united front against racism and fascism that is geared towards organising those who are determinedly anti-racist and anti-fascist. This could help launch a new movement to oppose the far-right and racism, a movement that would demand immediate action to address the multiple crises in our society – such as housing and the lack of much needed social services, devastated by a decade and a half of austerity and underfunding.

Increased exploitation, war and climate change – why people are fleeing

The wealth of billionaires globally has risen in the last decade by 120%.

By contrast, working-class and poor people the world over are suffering from a cost of living crisis and inflation. That has impacted billions. Since 2020 five billion people on the planet have become poorer. According to the Oxfam report:

“Across 52 countries, average real wages of nearly 800 million workers have fallen. These workers have lost a combined $1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to 25 days of lost wages for each worker.”

The world’s richest 1% own 59% of all global financial assets – including stocks, shares and bonds, plus stakes in privately held business. In the UK, the richest 1% own 36.5% of all financial assets, with a value of £1.8 trillion.

War, climate change and capitalist exploitation – forcing millions to flee from their homeland. In 25 years time there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees on the planet. The vast majority flee to neighbouring countries in the global south and only a tiny minority make it to the borders of the developed world. The corporations who profit from war as well as the fossil fuel lobby are largely based in the developed world.

The number of refugees recently arriving in Ireland has increased largely because of the war in Ukraine which commenced in 2022 but has been exacerbated by the other global factors.

What we stand for:

Homes and services for all – reject racism and division. Ireland is not ‘full’ but the rigged economy which concentrates resources, particularly accommodation and the initiative to build the homes we need in the hands of profiteers and landlords has sowed division;
End the system of direct provision - give refugees and asylum seekers the immediate right to work and to integrate;
End the work permit system that gives employers enormous powers of Non-European workers who come here to work. Migrant workers should be able to avail of the same rights as their EU colleagues and, where necessary, be permitted to change jobs;
We need an active movement in the workplace and communities to oppose racism in all its manifestations;

International: No to Imperialism, Colonialism, Militarism and Genocide

Capitalism produces inequality, environmental destruction and war. It’s a system that is underwriting a genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and supports anti-worker and despotic regimes the world over.

Ninety-nine doctors who have volunteered during the genocide in Gaza estimate that more than 118,908 have had their lives stolen by the Israeli state, amounting to 5.4% of Gaza’s population. Nearly the entire physical and social infrastructure of Gaza has been erased. Daily atrocities are being carried out by settlers in the West Bank, aided by the Israeli Defence (Occupying) Forces. And still arms exports from the US, UK and Germany in particular are flowing to Israel without which this heinous violence, that is now also being perpetrated against the people of Lebanon, could not continue.

The government has verbally opposed Israel’s actions but it is fundamentally a case of them being forced to reflect rhetorically the depth of support for the Palestinian people in wider Irish society and the profound revulsion at what has unfolded. This has earned the Irish government criticism from the Netenyahu administration but the reality is that under its administration Ireland is deeply integrated into the camp of western imperialist interests and there is a clear push to go further especially on the question of military alliances like NATO.

Basic measures, in the context of the genocide in Gaza, such as expelling the Israeli ambassador, boycotting St Patrick’s day festivities in Washington DC and bringing Senator Frances Black’s ‘Occupied Territories Bill’ into law and preventing the passing of arms through Irish territory and airspace have been blocked by the Government.

As an enthusiastic player in the European project, this Government is complicit in the grossly unequal and exploitative terms of trade the EU enters into with the Global South; the wholly inadequate measures signed up to at the annual COP climate conferences; and the policy of ‘Fortress Europe’, that sees thousands each year drown in the Mediterranean in a desperate effort to escape the consequences of all these policies.

The Socialist Party / Solidarity is internationalist, anti-capitalist and socialist. We see the need for an international struggle against this system which requires deep and practical solidarity between working class, poor and oppressed around the world, who together have a stake in doing away with a system that puts the interests of corporations, from the arms industry, to the fossil fuel lobby, first – a system that is breeding the rise of the far-right, increased authoritarianism, racism, colonialism and imperialism. Naomi Klein has coined the term, ‘genocide capitalism’, to sum up the depravity of this system today.

What we stand for:

Solidarity with the struggles of workers and oppressed peoples internationally
Oppose all imperialist powers, wars, genocide and occupations;
Expel the Israeli ambassador and support an end to all trade with Israel that in any way serves the oppression of the Palestinian people;
No to NATO membership and further EU militarisation;
US military out of Shannon and no to facilitating exports for genocide in Gaza in our airspace;
Student encampments and mass solidarity with Palestine movements have shown the way – Trade Unions must step up and mobilise the collective powers of workers including with strike action against the Israeli genocide in Gaza, its invasion of Lebanon, and its occupation of Palestine;
No to corporate “free trade” agreements – yes to cooperation that combats poverty, climate crisis and war;
No to the bosses’ EU and “Fortress Europe” – yes to a Europe and world of solidarity.

Irish Language Rights

Languages are important aspects of human culture. Each language is unique with its own history and its own usage. All languages and dialects are immeasurably rich and valuable for those who speak and for society in general. It is an indictment of this state that it has not supported the continued development of the Irish language nor the rights of Irish speakers and the economically marginalised, Gaeltacht areas.

In recent years, a number of sociolinguists have drawn the conclusion that the current economic system stands in direct opposition to the protection of minority languages. Parallels can be drawn between the defence of Irish and the defence of minority languages in Western Europe, and further afield. This includes indigenous resistance, where the link between the crisis of language loss and the ecological crisis are more closely aligned, in the face of powerful economic forces which threaten their (and our) existence.

The Irish language should be allowed to flourish, and its speakers should be given equal status. From the hard-won rights of families to access education through Irish (both North and South), to the Gaeltacht Civil Rights movement, Irish speakers have been front and centre in the fight to use their language. Irish speakers have also been an integral part of many other progressive campaigns. With the most recent attacks from the austerity years (when budgets for the promotion of Irish were completely slashed - more so than any other department at the time), the struggle goes on.

For the immediate and full implementation of the "Identity and Language (NI) Bill" in the North;
Equal status for both Irish and English. Right-wing "patriotic" and nationalist forces only hamper progress in respect of Irish language rights when they cynically utilise it for sectarian purposes. The Irish language is for all those who wish to use it;
More investment in training and hiring of Irish teachers. End pay inequality for teachers. Smaller class sizes to allow learners of all abilities to learn Irish. Furthermore, invest in providing everyone of all ages who may wish to avail of it, free and accessible classes to learn and further develop their Irish.
Large scale investment in jobs and infrastructure in the Gaeltacht and a more democratic and accountable Údarás na Gaeltachta with powers to oversee mass housing projects in the Gaeltacht. Due to the profitable holiday home industry on the west coast of Ireland, the housing crisis has disproportionately affected Gaeltacht areas. We stand with Gaeltacht activists fighting for the right to live, work and raise their families in their Irish-speaking communities.
Investment in language planning with a long term strategy. We believe that the promotion of Irish must be part of a wider policy which would require the expansion of public housing, education, childcare, transport and other public services which would be accessible through the language, as is the right of Irish speakers.
Other indigenous minority languages such as Shelta and Ulster-Scots should also receive public investment. There are also many other language communities in Ireland that are not indigenous. These communities should also enjoy public funding to access resources to teach children, to raise children bilingually, and be integrated into a public education system that actively accommodates and facilitates this.

Cearta Gaeilge

Is gnéithe tábhachtacha de chultúr an duine iad teangacha. Tá gach teanga sainiúl lena stair féin agus lena húsáid féin. Tá gach teanga agus canúint thar a bheith saibhir agus luachmhar dóibh siúd a labhraíonn agus don tsochaí i gcoitinne. Is léiriú é ar an stát seo nár thacaigh sé le forbairt leanúnach na Gaeilge ná le cearta na gcainteoirí Gaeilge agus na Gaeltachtaí atá imeallaithe go heacnamaíoch.

Le blianta beaga anuas, tá roinnt sochtheangeolaithe tar éis teacht ar an tátal go seasann an córas eacnamaíoch reatha go díreach i gcoinne chosaint na mionteangacha. Is féidir comparáid a dhéanamh idir cosaint na Gaeilge agus cosaint na mionteangacha in Iarthar na hEorpa, agus níos faide i gcéin. Cuimsíonn sé seo frithsheasmhacht dúchasach, áit a bhfuil an nasc idir géarchéim an chaillteanais teanga agus an ghéarchéim éiceolaíoch fite fúite, agus iad ag dul i ngleic le fórsaí eacnamaíocha cumhachtacha atá ag bagairt orthu (agus orainne).

Ba cheart dúinn ligint don Ghaeilge bláthú (mar theanga), agus stádas comhionann a thabhairt dá lucht labhartha. Ó na cearta atá buaite ag teaghlaigh rochtain a fháil ar oideachas trí Ghaeilge (ó Thuaidh agus Theas), go dtí gluaiseacht Chearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta, bhí cainteoirí Gaeilge chun tosaigh agus lárnach sa troid chun a dteanga a úsáid. Bhí cainteoirí Gaeilge mar chuid lárnach de go leor feachtas forásach eile freisin. Leis na hionsaithe is déanaí ó bhlianta na déine (nuair a bhí buiséid do chur chun cinn na Gaeilge ciorraithe go hiomlán - níos mó ná aon roinn eile ag an am), leanann an streachailt ar aghaidh.

An fód a sheasaimid:

An "Bille Féiniúlachta agus Teanga (TÉ)" a chur i bhfeidhm láithreach agus go hiomlán sa Tuaisceart
Comhstádas don Ghaeilge agus don Bhéarla. Ní chuireann fórsaí "tírghrá" agus náisiúnacha na heite deise bac ar dhul chun cinn maidir le cearta na Gaeilge ach amháin nuair a úsáideann siad go ciniceach é chun críocha seicteach. Tá an Ghaeilge ann dóibh siúd go léir ar mian leo í a úsáid.
Níos mó infheistíochta in oiliúint agus fostú múinteoirí Gaeilge. Cuir deireadh le héagothroime pá do mhúinteoirí. Ranganna níos lú chun deis a thabhairt d’fhoghlaimeoirí de gach cumas an Ghaeilge a fhoghlaim. Ina theannta sin, déan infheistíocht chun ranganna saor in aisce agus- inrochtana a sholáthar do gach duine de gach aois ar mian leo leas a bhaint as, chun a gcuid Gaeilge a fhoghlaim agus a fhorbairt.

- Infheistíocht i bpoist agus in infrastruchtúr sa Ghaeltacht agus Údarás na Gaeltachta atá níos daonlathaí agus níos cuntasaí le cumhachtaí maoirseacht a dhéanamh ar olltionscadail tithíochta sa Ghaeltacht. Mar gheall ar thionscal brabúsach na dtithe saoire ar chósta thiar na hÉireann, chuir an ghéarchéim tithíochta isteach go míchothram ar cheantair Ghaeltachta. Seasann muid le gníomhaithe Gaeltachta ag troid ar son an chirt chun cónaí, oibriú agus tógáil a dteaghlaigh ina bpobail Ghaeilge.

Infheistíocht sa phleanáil teanga le straitéis fhadtéarmach. Creidimid go gcaithfidh cur chun cinn na Gaeilge a bheith mar chuid de pholasaí níos leithne a d’éileodh leathnú ar thithíocht phoiblí, oideachas, cúram leanaí, iompar agus seirbhísí poiblí eile a bheadh inrochtana trí mheán na teanga, faoi mar atá ceart ag cainteoirí Gaeilge.
Ba cheart infheistíocht phoiblí a fháil freisin i dteangacha dúchasacha mionlaigh eile ar nós Shelta agus Ultais. Tá go leor pobail teanga eile in Éirinn freisin nach bhfuil dúchasach. Ba cheart go mbeadh maoiniú poiblí ag na pobail seo freisin chun teacht ar acmhainní chun leanaí a mhúineadh, chun leanaí a thógáil go dátheangach, agus go mbeidís imeasctha i gcóras oideachais poiblí a fhreastalaíonn go gníomhach air agus a éascaíonn é sin.

Overcoming division – for a socialist Ireland:

Thirty years on from the ceasefires and 26 years on from the Good Friday Agreement, the division in Northern Ireland society, and on the island of Ireland as a whole, remains.

Since it came into being, the Stormont Assembly has collapsed or been suspended eight times and has not functioned for 40% of that time. This is an indictment on the main local parties who have no real stake in overcoming sectarianism, and in fact have acted to institutionalise it. Time and again they have been collectively exposed as conveyor belts for Tory and now UK Labour Party austerity.

Neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP made any stand against the draconian two-child benefit cap, nor the recent cuts to winter fuel allowance. By contrast they have both underwritten £71 million in rates cuts for local businesses.

Likewise on key social issues from the extension of abortion rights to the banning of puberty blockers, there has not been any significant difference between Sinn Féin and the DUP. And so it goes for the environment where they have jointly presided over the calamitous pollution of Lough Neagh.

By jointly administering a contrived ‘scarcity’ which is universally unpopular among ordinary people, the main parties rely upon stoking sectarian rows around everything from schools, language, to legacy issues from the Troubles in an effort to divert the anger.

In contrast to the divisive approach of sectarian parties, the North has been particularly marked in recent years by a succession of strikes by workers to achieve real pay rises bringing Catholic and Protestant and migrant workers together in the process of shared struggle around their common interests.

Again it was workers in their unions alongside young people who have recently come out in force against the rise in racist attacks.

The countering of division and disunity across the island of Ireland can only be achieved through common struggle from below of working-class and oppressed people. This is a struggle against a system that offers crumbs for the majority, and a continued enriching of a super-wealthy elite. Such a struggle and movement against all oppression, and inequality, one that is actively and consciously breaking down all sectarian and other barriers that exist between ordinary people, offers a vision for a fundamentally different type of society. Such a society would bear no resemblance to the two sectarian states that have been run in the interests of big business for over a century.

This struggle against the capitalist status quo must be, by necessity, a broad-based, mass and radical movement – the only type of movement that could put a socialist alternative on the agenda. This is also the only path by which the deep-rooted sectarian divisions that exist in Northern Ireland could be broken down, as well as divisions across the island as a whole – something that is necessary in order to resolve the conflicting national aspirations on the island of Ireland. Such a struggle from below that seeks to build the deepest possible roots in working class Catholic, Protestant and other communities will not be achieved by a border poll with its potential to further entrench, rather than overcome sectarian division, no matter the result.

A movement for socialist change must also reach out and build the maximum possible solidarity and unity with workers in the trade union movement, and with movements of the working class and oppressed in England, Wales and Scotland, and across Europe as a whole.

What we stand for:

No to austerity for working people and tax breaks for big business in NI;
Support trade union led struggle for decent pay and conditions;
No to the scapegoating of migrants and racist attacks;
Opposition to the oppression of LGBTQ+ people. Reverse the ban on puberty blockers passed by Stormont;
For the unity of the working class, Protestant, Catholic and other, North and South, in opposition to all forms of sectarianism, paramilitarism and state repression;
No community should be coerced against their national aspirations, identity and wishes;
Fight for a socialist Ireland – with no coercion of any community. A socialist Ireland that would prioritise, uphold and guarantee the rights of minorities, linked to a socialist Scotland, England and Wales, and a socialist Europe.

Grotesque wealth inequality and ecocide must end – socialist change needed

Prices are up 17% in the last three years, but wages are only up on average 10%. Budget 2025 contains tax breaks for the rich and more corporate welfare. Bank profits in 2022 were €5 billion; food retailers' profits were €18 billion; and the 10 biggest companies' profits were greater than €100 billion. The number of people with wealth over €50 million has doubled to 1,435.

We live in a country and a world of gross wealth inequality. And our corporate tax policy – supported by all major parties – helps make the world, and our own country, even more brutally unequal. Our governments have pandered to the rich, promising the rest of us that the wealth will trickle down. Instead we have decaying towns and underfunded public services. The most stark example is that of the tax bill due from Apple, €14 billion, which the government has fought tooth and nail for years not to collect.

Thousands of people have joined the multi-millionaire class, thanks to this government. But millions more have suffered from crises in housing, public services and cost of living, and should vote for radical change, not a continued deepening of inequality.

The system of capitalism that puts the drive for profit first not only produces this grotesque wealth inequality, but is also destroying ecosystems with no end in sight.

The only way to pull the “emergency brake” on capitalism’s destruction of the environment is through socialist democracy and economic planning that can meet human needs. To achieve this, society’s wealth and resources must be taken out of the hands of the big corporate polluters and put to use to meet the needs of people and the planet.

The first and most urgent measure is the phasing out of fossil fuels in favour of solar, wind and wave energy. There is an urgent need for a rapid transformation and development of society through green energy projects, including infrastructure, sustainable social housing, massively expanded public transport, healthcare, education and green job guarantees.

A democratic, planned economy could do ‘more with less’, including raising living standards of the majority of people as part of a planned ecological transition – retooling socially useless or destructive industries; eliminating duplication, overproduction and planned obsolescence; focusing on fulfilling needs not generating artificial wants; and transforming agriculture, transport and energy production on a sustainable basis.

In such a system whole industries, communities and cities would be planned democratically and on a completely different basis, putting an end to capitalist overproduction and waste and allowing for a more rational allocation of resources.

What we stand for:

Take the wealth off the 1%. For progressive taxes on profits and for ascending progressive tax on incomes over €100,000 to fund servicesEnd Ireland's tax haven status;
Double corporation tax and end corporate welfare policies
Build a new major left-wing political force that organises workers, young and all oppressed and exploited people in struggle against all injustices and for a socialist alternative. For a working-class movement to bring about a left, socialist government that breaks with capitalism;
Take the key sectors of the economy – the monopolies in banking, industry, services, agriculture and big tech – into public ownership under the democratic control of the working class;
Replace the capitalist market with a democratic socialist plan for the economy based on the interests of the overwhelming majority of people and the environment.

Do you like this page?