There are forces in Ireland who would wish to develop and fund a new political project with the aim of increasing inequality in our society and further eroding workers rights. They seek to do this by claiming a concern with ‘reform’; in reality the only change they wish to deliver is that which benefits wealthy corporate interests.

Irish society must learn from past mistakes and not allow the current public questioning of its political class to, again, be hijacked by a greedy minority.  A degree of unity on the Left, accompanied by a more vigilant trade union movement could have prevented the unbridled free marketeering Progressive Democrats from grabbing the balance of power in what was a healthy and sustainable economy in 1997.

If the Left had managed to retain the Department of Finance, the majority shareholding of Eircom, the ACC, the ICC and the TSB would never have been privatised and speculation would never have been incentivised while innovation was starved. The buccaneering ‘look the other way’ regulation culture would never have become as endemic as it did. And while there would have been a down turn as a result of global developments it would have been on a much lesser and more manageable scale than that which ultimately unfolded.

The indebtedness, the unemployment, the emigration and a great deal of the misery that has been endured over the past few years would never have been experienced. The tragedy is that it did and whereas we in the trade union movement and on the Left certainly did not cause it, we were not able to prevent it either.