“The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality.”
- Proposed amendment to Article 136 TFEU of the EU Treaties by which the 27 EU Member States authorize the 17 Member States of the euro currency area to establish a Stability Mechanism ... read full story / add a comment

BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF WE VOTE NO?

COULD IRELAND’S ACCESS TO A FUTURE BAILOUT FROM THE ESM RESCUE FUND BE PUT AT JEOPARDY BY THAT DECISION?

This is the so-called ‘Blackmail Clause’ contained in Article 136 of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty. ... read full story / add a comment

Does the Fiscal Compact Treaty Deal with the Cause of the Crisis? What Caused the Crisis? The collapse of the Irish banking system was principally caused by a failure of regulation and the reckless lending practices of the Irish and European banking system.
... read full story / add a comment

TO:
Professor Colm McCarthy
Department of Economics
UCD
Dublin 4

Sunday 29 April 2012

Dear Colm,

I am writing to you to make some points arising from your comments on the so-called Fiscal Treaty and the referendum on it on RTE’s Morning Ireland last Tuesday morning. ... read full story / add a comment

A referendum on the Fiscal Treaty (‘SCG’/Stability, Coordination and Governance) is to be held in Ireland in May but the related European Stability Mechanism Treaty (‘ESM’) is not to be similarly scrutinised, much less put to the people for approval. Yet both treaties are explicitly linked and interdependent. According to the ESM Treaty both treaties are ’complementary’. The ESM Treaty is illegal under EU law as it stands and is therefore unconstitutional, being in breach of existing EU treaty principles which have been approved by the Irish people in previous referendums and are now part of our law. ... read full story / add a comment

Peoples Movement campaigns: against any measures that further develop the EU into a federal state; and to defend and enhance popular sovereignty, democracy and social justice in Ireland. ... read full story / add a comment

the perspective of David North’s is a narrow nationalist one. It limits the problem to one of the decline of US capitalism as opposed to the decline of capitalism as a world economic system. This means that for the WSWS the problems of capitalism are solvable within a merely nationalist framework. Such a framework only requires a mere restructuring of global capitalism. In contrast for communists the authentic solution is the elimination of capitalism through social revolution.
... read full story / add a comment

Does the Fiscal Treaty benefit Ireland? ... read full story / add a comment

Here in Ireland there are many 1916 commemorations that are held annually by various groups and parties, but unfortunately, only a very divided fraction of those celebrate it from a revolutionary point of view. ... read full story / add a comment

In a move clearly aimed at trying to upstage and divert attention from an extremely embarasing Sinn Féin private members’ motion on the ESM Treaty, the Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, told the Dáil on 21 March that the Government is
“now negotiating with the EU authorities, and principaly with the ECB, on the basis that the €3.06 bilion cash instalment due from the Minister to IBRC [Irish Bank Resolution Corporation] on 31 March 2012 under the terms of the IBRC promisory note could be settled by the delivery of a long-term Irish government bond. The details of the arrangement have still to be worked out.” ... read full story / add a comment

The stroke? Sign up, virtually ‘on the q.t.,’ to a new permanent euro-zone bail-out fund, the European Stability Mechanism, to which Ireland will be “irrevocably and unconditionally” obliged to the tune of €11 billion, while all the time making great palaver about holding a referendum on the Fiscal Compact Treaty. ... read full story / add a comment

The Government wants the Dáil and Seanad in the very near future to approve a hugely important amendment to the EU treaties without any referendum, even though this amendment and its legal and political consequences would mark a qualitative change in the direction of the EU and in the character, scope and objectives of the Economic and Monetary Union. ... read full story / add a comment

What sort of a nation of people do we have when nearly 500,000 householders decide to pay a charge that is directly aimed at the most vulnerable and stressed incomes in our society. ... read full story / add a comment

With less than a week to go before more than one million people will be hauled into court for breaking the law the Household Charge protest hs taken one more step closer to success. The only people who believe this tax is justifable are the same people who can well afford to pay this tax. While this government squeezes more and more out of the people politicians like Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore give themselves pay rises to compensate them for losses they incured through their so-called ''we are all in this together' cry of unity. Should one million people refuse to pay the cahrge before the deadline of the 31st Match, then this must be seen a s a sign of no confidence in this government and Irish politicians in general.

... read full story / add a comment

For a number of years now, I have been going regularly to music festivals – everything from Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, Life and much smaller independent music festivals which I have always found to be a huge contrast to the often staid, boring meetings and rallies on social justice issues. ... read full story / add a comment

The Government seems determined to push ahead in the next few months with the ratification of two important treaties: the “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union” and the revised “Treaty on the European Stability Mechanism.”

The two treaties would make member-states of the euro zone into regimes of economic austerity, involving deeper and deeper cuts in public expenditure, increases in indirect taxes, reductions in wages, sustained liberalisation of markets, and the privatisation of public property. ... read full story / add a comment

This post is a quick response to an SWP internal members bulletin, which was presumably leaked by one of their members - available to read here: http://tomasoflatharta.com/2012/02/09/kubla-heard-from-...else/. It gives an insight to the real views of the SWP on a number of issues including the ULA and the CAHWT. I want to take up some of their points relating to the Household tax campaign, which I object to and to offer what I think is the real situation with the campaign. ... read full story / add a comment

Dublin is still reeling from its boom period and the cacophony of high-flown plans it threw up. Now that it's all over, how do the various projects stand up? ... read full story / add a comment

The following open letter concerning hydraulic gas fracturing in Ireland was recently sent to the Pat Rabbitte, Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources. Several other people have written to the minister and have received no reply.

This is an important issue because it concerns contaminating the land and water for the benefit of just a few over the rights and interests of many and protection of the environment. ... read full story / add a comment

Let's start with red lines. Here it is, Washington’s ultimate red line, straight from the lion’s mouth. Only last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said of the Iranians, “Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us.”

How strange, the way those red lines continue to retreat. Once upon a time, the red line for Washington was “enrichment” of uranium. Now, it’s evidently an actual nuclear weapon that can be brandished. Keep in mind that, since 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has stressed that his country is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from the U.S. Intelligence Community has similarly stressed that Iran is not, in fact, developing a nuclear weapon (as opposed to the breakout capacity to build one someday). ... read full story / add a comment