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“Such a parcel of rogues in a nation”

The new Irish government

Part Three: Searching for the opposition

24 January 2024


Sinn Fein TDs protest over speaking rights.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has assembled, on a low vote and on the back of a previous unpopular government, one of the most right-wing administrations in modern Irish history. It has promised more of the same – a crisis of housing and public services in fealty to transnational capital. The administration is only assembling and the news has come in that the new Trump agenda may well wreck Ireland’s status as a tax haven.

Trouble is brewing. It should be easy to assemble an opposition. Right?

Well, there was chaos in the Dail when the first attempts were made to elect Micheál Martin as Taoiseach and the sitting had to be abandoned, but this was over a relatively narrow issue, a cute stroke to give the government supporters in the Regional Independent Group speaking rights and Dail support as members of the opposition while simultaneously being members of the government. That proposal was suspended and the installation of the new government went ahead on Thursday 23rd of January.

So, what was claimed to be the strongest demonstration against the installation of a government in the history of the Dail was restricted to a measure that would have cut into opposition speaking time. This indicates only token opposition to the anti working-class measures being taken by the government and that such opposition as there is will be largely restricted to speechifying in the parliament.

Sinn Féin and the other mainstream parties met, but it was not to assemble an opposition. It was to search for a way into government. Almost every current in the Dail has been in coalition with the government parties. A number held talks to be included in the current coalition. The exceptions were Sinn Féin, who were excluded despite entry to government being at the very centre of their strategy, and People Before Profit, who oppose coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, but who counterpoise a “left” coalition with other capitalist parties.

There are no proposals for a common opposition current. Everyone wants into coalition because there is only one programme – subordination to transnational capital.

The illusion for several decades has been that Sinn Féin was a left party with a substantially different programme that might form a new government or force a new direction on existing parties.

It has failed to do so for two reasons. The first is that the government successfully used opposition to migrants to its own advantage.  Racist riots in Dublin in 2023 and further mobilisations across the country were appeased by the state forces. In the run-up to the election the coalition ran a pump and dump strategy. They swept migrants from Dublin pavements and up into the Dublin mountains and substantially hardened applications for entry and conditions for those entering the country.

Then the Guards roughly cleared away the racist demonstrations. The government had displayed resolute law and order while conceding politically to the racists.

The racists received a relatively small vote. Sinn Féin were caught on the hop. A section of their base had moved right while the more radical section defended migrant rights. Their standard attempt to talk out of both sides of their mouth didn’t work.  In any case, they had been caught out earlier on housing pledges, with the government successfully dismissing their policy as hot air.

This failure was followed by denial. It was claimed that a united Ireland was closer than ever, then that Stormont minister Conor Murphy was being moved south to bring extra discipline to the troops.

Rearranging the deckchairs won’t work. Sinn is not a working-class party, so it won’t appeal to workers’ class interests to make common cause with migrants. Its housing policy is totally unconvincing and does not oppose the government policy of subsidising property developers.

This would be difficult given the Sinn Féin presence in government in the North and the growing housing crisis there. That role in administration of partition makes any anti-imperialist pretensions impossible. It is much more likely that their failure to produce any realistic or progressive programme for government in the North will further erode support south of the border.

What of PbP? Their reaction was predictable.  Sudden amnesia around a decades long policy of left government with Sinn Féin and a return to simple minded recruitment calls.

The policy of servicing finance capital has led in the past to the bankruptcy of the Irish state. Pumping up our role as a tax haven has led to further crises, especially around housing and public services.

A new opposition will need to base its programme on opposition to Ireland’s capitulation to imperialism. A tax policy that swells the coffers of the transnationals and the local oligarchs must be resisted. The urgent necessity at the moment is to fight the rapid march to war in Europe and expose the government’s duplicity in it’s ongoing support for Israel and the programme of genocide.


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