Speech by SIPTU Deputy General Secretary, Ethel Buckley, at the annual commemoration of the death of James Connolly, Arbour Hill, Dublin on Sunday 16th May, 2021

16 May 2021

There are many reasons why we commemorate the life and death of James Connolly, who was executed not only for his part in the Easter Rising but of course for his commitment to a socialist republic in Ireland 105 years ago this week.
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Speech by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor at Biennial Delegate Conference of the union in City Hall Cork, 2nd October 2017

02 October 2017

Welcome to conference 2017 – the centenary year of the Russian Revolution. Since our last Conference here in Cork two years ago, a great deal has changed in the world. History has moved on and many of the old certainties have been challenged, if not yet dismantled.
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Connolly Commemoration 2017 speech by President Jack O'Connor

15 May 2017

We are assembled here today, in the centenary year of the Russian Revolution, to commemorate the heroic figure of James Connolly, trade unionist, labourite, socialist and revolutionary martyr.
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Jack O’Connor at Larkin 70th anniversary commemoration

30 January 2017

Speech by SIPTU President, Jack O’Connor at commemoration to mark the 70th anniversary of the death of socialist and labour leader, Jim Larkin, in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin on 30th January 2017.
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A Trade Union Strategy to Win for Working People

28 July 2016

Speech at the Mother Jones Festival, Cork by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, on Thursday, 28th July, 2016
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Speech by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, at James Connolly Commemoration Arbour Hill, Sunday 15th May, 2016.

16 May 2016

Brothers, Sisters, Comrades and Friends We gather here today to pay tribute to a fearless fighter for freedom, not just of his country, but of his class. In making his historic decision to align his fortunes and those of the Irish Citizen Army with Cumann na mBan and the Irish Volunteers, Connolly was hugely influenced by the continuing slaughter of tens of thousands of young Irishmen in an imperialist war not of their making. He was a committed socialist and internationalist and during his short but full life of physical and ideological struggle against capitalism, in Scotland, Ireland and the US he knew well that replacing the union jack with the green flag would not be enough to achieve freedom for his class.
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Speech by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, at the monument to Thomas Ashe in Ashbourne, county Meath, on Saturday 30th April.

03 May 2016

Friends and comrades, I would like to warmly welcome you to this important and historic occasion when we mark the centenary of the Battle of Ashbourne when rebel forces led by Thomas Ashe won a most significant military victory during the 1916 Rising.
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Speech by President Michael D. Higgins At a Ceremony in Celebration of James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army

31 March 2016

Liberty Hall Theatre, 29th March, 2016
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Speech by SIPTU General President Jack O'Connor at ICA commemoration 29th March 2016

30 March 2016

Uachtaráin Michael D, Sabina, Tanaiste, Minister, A Ardmhéara, Members of the Oireachteas, Councillors, Relatives of Irish Citizen Army Volunteers, Trade Union Comrades from abroad and at home, friends – welcome to this historic location today to mark the heroism of the Irish Citizen Army which fought in the struggle for freedom one hundred years ago.
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Speech by Joe O’Flynn at Áras an Uachtaráin for the presentation of the Green Flag of Ireland

23 March 2016

We were delighted to learn earlier this year that the Green Flag of Ireland had been discovered by the Inniskillings Museum among the collection of items seized from Liberty Hall during the Easter Rising in 1916.
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Speech by President Michael D. Higgins At a Reception to Mark the 102nd Anniversary of the Irish Citizen Army

23 March 2016

A Cháirde go léir, You are all most welcome to Áras an Uachtaráin for this very special afternoon of history, music and literature. It was Sabina who suggested this special occasion and I am grateful to her, as I am sure you are, that we have this opportunity to recall and honour, among friends, the distinctive contribution of the Irish Citizen Army to Ireland’s freedom.
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SIPTU President Jack O’Connor announces union campaign for decent work

05 October 2015

SIPTU President, Jack O’Connor has announced that the union is to organise a major campaign against low wages and exploitative work practices and contracts.
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Address by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, at the annual James Connolly Commemoration

10 May 2015

Sunday 10th May 2015 Arbour Hill Cemetery We are assembled here to mark the 99th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly, leader of the Irish Citizen Army and acting General Secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union who, alone among the signatories to the 1916 Proclamation, approached the rebellion from an international socialist perspective.
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O'Connor calls on Labour Party to 'say it as it is'

28 February 2015

Address by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, to a meeting on the restatement of Labour values Saturday 28th February, at the Labour Party Conference, Killarney, Co. Kerry.
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Speech by Ethel Buckley, ICTU Executive Council Member and SIPTU National Campaigns and Equality Organiser at the launch of Trade Unionists for Civil Marriage Equality in Liberty Hall on 13 February 2015

03 March 2015

The launch of Trade Unionists for Civil Marriage Equality is a significant event for the Irish trade union movement and it is fitting that it should take place here in Liberty Hall, Halla na Saoirse. Because, this is indeed a hall of liberty associated with the historic struggle of workers for over a century.
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Speech by SIPTU President, Jack O’Connor, at the centenary commemoration of the founding of the Irish Neutrality League

21 October 2014

I want to compliment the Peace and Neutrality Alliance for its initiative in launching two publications and arranging this meeting to mark the centenary of the founding of the Irish Neutrality League in October 1914 by James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Eamon Ceannt, Sean McDiarmada, Joseph Mary Plunkett, Padraig Pearse and Thomas McDonagh, all future signatories of the 1916 proclamation.
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Jack O'Connor commemorates Connolly in Belfast

13 May 2014

Speech in Belfast by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, at the commemoration of the death of James Connolly on Monday 12th May.
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SIPTU President calls on members to remember role of James Connolly

11 May 2014

Address by SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor at the annual James Connolly Commemoration 11.00 a.m. Sunday 11th May 2014 Arbour Hill Cemetery
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Speech by Jack O’Connor, General President, SIPTU at the Larkin Commemoration 2014

02 February 2014

Glasnevin Cemetery, Sunday, 2nd February, 2014
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SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor at Alicia Brady commemoration

04 January 2014

Glasnevin Cemetery, Saturday, 4th January, 2014
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The Legacy of the Lockout

30 November 2013

Address by SIPTU General President, Jack O’Connor, to the Labour Party Conference, Killarney, County Kerry, Saturday, 30th November, 2013.
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A Reflection – Christy Kirwan

28 November 2013

Oration by the SIPTU General Secretary, Joe O'Flynn, at the funeral of Christy Kirwan on Wednesday, 27th November It is my privilege to reflect on the life of Christy Kirwan, his enormous contribution to the trade union and labour movement and his involvement in so many other interests over his 87 years. Christy was born on 14th September 1926 into a working class family and was born and reared in one room in Meath Street in the Liberties. This was to have a huge influence on Christy’s desire to improve the living conditions of workers and their families through his work with the labour movement.
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The 2013 Magill Summer School

Friday 2nd August 2013

 

The best alternative to austerity or “one sided austerity” as it has been practiced in Ireland and in Europe over the past number of years – is to stop it!

The evidence is now clear for all to see. The Eurozone economy has contracted for six quarters in a row.  Domestic demand now stands 5% below the 2007 level and in the stressed countries of southern Europe it has fallen by 15%.  Unemployment has risen to its highest level since the 1950s.  Meanwhile the US economy has grown by more than 5%, creating seven million jobs thanks to the expansionary fiscal and monetary policies implemented by President Obama and Ben Bernanke, Head of the Federal Reserve Bank.  Over the same period the global economy has grown by more than 20%.

Unless there is a change of course entailing some sort of write off or mutualisation of debt, accompanied by a major fiscal initiative to facilitate the generation of jobs and growth, thus enabling countries to manage and reduce their debt to GDP ratio, it will end in the demise of the euro or the collapse of the democratic system itself, in some countries at least, or both.  It may not happen today or tomorrow but more likely following a prolonged period of stagnation and anaemic growth interspaced by recurring false dawns, which will always be heralded as “the end of the recession”.   Indeed we may be entering such a false dawn now.

 “Austerity” is never actually societally neutral. It is a violence perpetrated against working people and those who depend most on public services. Until now at least, it has been administered through a deadly concoction of fiscal retrenchment accompanied by “Labour Market Reform” – a euphemism for the most sustained attack on the gains made by organised workers since the Second World War. 

We are living through a brutal recalibration which is attempting to engineer a retrospective realignment of economies (and societies) to a currency.  This amounts to nothing short of the dismantlement of the Post War settlement especially in the area of the employer/worker relationship, dramatically shifting wealth from labour to capital and rigorously asserting the unfettered law of the market in the workplace.  Simultaneously relentless austerity is gnawing away at it in the wider social arena.  Some see this as a kind of “Germanification” of Europe - actually it is much more about “Americanisation”.

Parallel with this, Social Democracy is committing political suicide as its attempt to ameliorate the impact is mistakenly perceived as collaboration, no less here than anywhere else. 

This means that when the reaction materialises, as it inevitably will, there is a real danger that it will be led by the populist xenophobic right with horrendous implications for civil society. 

The great tragedy is that the strong economies of central and northern Europe have the capacity to underpin a new social contract which could be underwritten by the ECB.  This would entail a kind of “Post Collapse Settlement” to facilitate a socially sustainable realignment over a reasonable timeframe.  Most crucially it would entail a different balance between stimulus now and fiscal effort over the medium term.  (In this regard the German DGB has put forward proposals for a kind of new Marshall Plan for Europe).  Ironically the strength of those economies is largely attributable to the success of the Social Market Model which was the core proposition of the Post War compromise.

Pope Francis hit the nail on the head before embarking on his recent trip to Brazil:  “If investments in banks drop a little, it’s a tragedy.  But if people are starving, if they have nothing to eat, if they are not healthy, it does not matter.  That is our crisis today.”  (Source:  T.P. O’Mahony, Irish Examiner 29/7/2013)

That’s Europe but the question is what, if anything, can we do to change things here in Ireland?  We have very little scope to manoeuvre, hamstrung as we are with an unsustainable debt burden and the highest deficit in the EU. 

We really have no option but to try to stick to the 3% deficit target by 2015, even though it is nonsensical.   

We have endured a punishing one sided “adjustment” programme taking €28bn, the equivalent of 18% of GDP out of our economy, (only 10% of which is accountable to increased taxes on wealth and capital), to reduce the underlying deficit by just over €6bn.   As a result, our economy has been declining over three successive quarters.

The first thing we should do is to apply the law of digging holes i.e. we must stop digging! 

The key in terms of alternatives to austerity is finding a better balance between “fiscal effort” on the one hand and a combination of measures to improve growth on the other.  

We must try to create a platform to encourage the private sector to spend more, to consume or invest, unlocking our high savings ratio, (which is partially attributable to personal deleveraging), thus igniting domestic demand. 

This will not be achieved overnight, but by employing the right combination of policies we could change the direction of the economic trajectory from negative to positive.  The breathing space afforded by the Promissory Note Deal offers the possibility of beginning to do it.

However, just when a tiny glimmer of light begins to appear in the tunnel, all the agents of those at the top of the banking system, who caused the crisis in the first place, have changed the goalposts, determined to extinguish it.  They have all come out over the past few weeks, from the Troika to the IMF to the Head of the ESM, to the Fiscal Council through the Central Bank - all the comfortable voices of the top decile, as if on cue, to threaten the end of civilisation if the Government fails to inflict more unnecessary misery on those who have little or nothing.

We have been threatened with loss of the prospect of retrospective recapitalisation of our banks by the Head of the ESM.  (This is rather ironic given that this year’s June statement from the EU Summit all but reversed last year’s declaration on severing the link between sovereign and bank debt.  Indeed the President of the Euro Group, Jeroen Dijslbloem, has recently been out to the effect that there is little support for it among Eurozone Finance Ministers).    We have also been threatened with loss of a precautionary credit line to assist in our efforts to exit the “bailout”.  This is nothing short of blackmail on a monumental scale.

We do need assistance on the bank recapitalisation, otherwise we are condemned to bear an impossible burden for more than a generation in a low growth, low inflation environment, if we do not succumb to it altogether. 

However, while the Government does not have a great deal of leverage it does have some, because the failure of our programme could bring down the whole Eurozone pack of cards.  They must display nerves of steel in face of this tyranny.   It is one thing having to inflict misery because it is the least worst of the available options, but going along with it when it is unnecessary is not only economically unsustainable but worse, it is morally indefensible.

Over the next three months the Government will doubtlessly be called upon to demonstrate the same resolve that it has displayed in Budgets 2012 and 2013, but this time in confronting the ruthless agenda of those at the top of the European banking system, instead of our own citizens. 

Full utilisation of the breathing space afforded by the Promissory Note Deal would enable us to meet the 5.1% deficit target for 2014 with a €2.1bn adjustment instead of €3.1bn.  (Actually we would probably have some room to spare because we are running somewhat ahead of target).

The measures to be carried over from Budget 2013, (although aspects of the Property Tax in its current form must be renovated), together with the savings yielded by the Haddington Road Agreement will account for almost €1bn.  This would leave €1.1bn to be achieved. 

In this regard the first consideration is as to how rapidly the €6bn, which has now been redesignated for the Strategic Investment Fund, can be leveraged into the economy via commercial criteria.  It must be prioritised as a key pillar of Government policy as it will not be assimilated through a process of osmosis. 

In a recent NERI paper, entitled “Ireland’s Investment Crisis: Diagnosis and Prescription”, Victor Duggan pointed out that “public and private sector investment is at its lowest level in the Country’s recorded economic history, undermining growth and job creation in the short-term and productivity in the long-term”.

We, in the Trade Union Movement, believe more can be done.  We published detailed proposals in September 2011 outlining a means of doing this, tapping into other potential sources of investment to address the infrastructural deficit.  However, we do acknowledge that it takes time.

Jobs on the ground are the most important ingredient in rebuilding confidence.  But it should also be possible to factor in some contribution to the budgetary arithmetic from the initiative in respect of savings on social transfers and revenue buoyancy.

Thereafter, there is the thorny question of increasing the revenue yield from wealth and those in the top income decile, so as to minimise the economic impact of additional taxation.   

Despite all the hype about marginal tax rates at 52% and 55% respectively, the top 10% of households actually pay an effective rate of 25.6% of their income, according to analysis undertaken by Dr. Michéal Collins of NERI.   Increasing this by 2.3 percentage points would yield about €600m and a good deal of it could be achieved over two budgets without increasing the marginal rate.

In this regard I would earnestly urge the Fine Gael Party in the Government to demonstrate some compassion and lift its veto on a contribution from citizens in this category.  After all if it is reasonable to ask those in the Public Service, who had already borne cuts averaging 14% to hand over a further €1bn on the basis that rates foregone would be reinstated in a few years’ time, is it not unreasonable to seek a similar accommodation from the better off?  It might be less objectionable if it were applied as some kind of a designated “solidarity contribution” in which the revenue garnered would be deployed solely for a specific purpose such as, for example: -resources for people with disabilities.

If we can arrest the decline and steer the economy back onto a growth trajectory, however modest, the next issue will be the establishment of robust credit lines to fuel recovery.

 I do not believe our Banks are up to the task.   While they are in State ownership to a considerable degree, the outlook and values that prevail in them have not changed.  It’s still too much about “getting back to business as usual” as distinct from fulfilling their proper role in the economy.  In this regard the Government should set about the commitment in its own Programme to develop a new Strategic Investment Bank.  This presents a formidable challenge but the Strategic Investment Fund should be mandated to provide the core platform for the proposition working in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland and the other promotional Agencies.

Meanwhile our Ministers should no longer be constrained in their critique of the strategy which threatens the future of Europe.  It is one thing having to go along with it - it is another endorsing it when it is increasingly obvious that it is absolute nonsense and very, very dangerous nonsense to boot.  Somebody somewhere has to start pointing out that the Emperor actually has no clothes!

After that there is the bigger question of industrial and economic policy for the medium term.  In this regard, still in the throes of our third major existential crisis in sixty years, it behoves us to come up with something better than – “Leave it to the Markets”.

ENDS

Mother Jones Festival, Cork: Speech by SIPTU General Secretary, Joe O’Flynn, 1st August, 2012

01 August 2012

As a Cork man, I am delighted to be here today on behalf of SIPTU to join in the celebrations of Mother Jones - a magnificent and inspirational trade unionist. I want to start by warmly congratulating the Organising Committee for a fantastic programme of events, but more importantly, for taking on the very worthy task of organising this commemoration of Mary Harris who was born here in the north side of Cork.
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The Public Service balance sheet

25 July 2012

SIPTU Vice-President, Patricia King said at the MacGill Summer School, Glenties, county Donegal, that a considerable amount of heat but not too much light has been generated in the on-going debate on public service reform. Addressing the event on Wednesday, 25th July, she said that behind muuch of the comment "lurks an agenda that is based on a false premise that slashing public services and the pay and conditions of those who provide them is some ‘quick fix’ solution to this country’s deep economic crisis."
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Speech by Jack O’Connor, General President at the Connolly Commemoration 2012

14 May 2012

We come here today to honour James Connolly, unquestionably Irish Labour’s greatest martyr. He was a product of an economic, social and political system that condemned him to spend his life in grinding poverty but rather than buckle to it, he unflinchingly criticised and, more importantly, analysed its flaws more intelligently and accurately than any of his compatriots. He was arguably the greatest Irish intellect of his generation.
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Remarks by President Michael D. Higgins at the unveiling of a memorial sculpture to commemmrate the Wexford Lockout of 1912 on Saturday, 12th May 2012

14 May 2012

A Chairde, Is mór an onóir agus an pléisiúr dom a bheith libh i Loch Garman inniu don ócáid thábhachtach seo. I would like thank the Mayor of Wexford, Councillor David Hynes, for his kind invitation to come to The Faythe to inaugurate a public work of art marking the centenary of the Wexford Lockout of 1912. That historic struggle secured a return to work for those involved and vindication of the right of the workers to establish a union to represent all foundry workers.
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Address by Jack O’Connor, General President, SIPTU to the SIPTU Biennial Delegate Conference

03 October 2011

A great deal has occurred since our last Biennial Delegate Conference in Tralee in October 2009. Working people on this island have suffered a great deal in the interim. The context was already set by the global collapse of 2008 and in this jurisdiction the implosion of our own domestic property bubble. The course had already been set, as well, with the Government’s declaration in August of that year of its intention to impose a €4bn ‘adjustment’ in the budget deficit entirely through public spending cuts. In other words, entirely at the expense of working people and those who depend most on public services while the wealthy would contribute nothing at all.
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Speech by President Michael D. Higgins at a Symposium entitled “Remembering 1916” in the Mansion House, Dublin on Monday, 28th March, 2016

28 March 2016

A Cháirde Gael, Is mór an phléisiúr dom tús a chur leis an gcomhrá seo tráthnóna ar an eachtra ríthábhachtach a bhí in Éirí Amach na Cásca 1916. Tugann sé sásamh faoi leith dom go bhfuil an ardán á roinnt agam inniu le scoláirí den scoth - gach duine acu, trína saothair agus taighde, a chur go mór lenár dtuiscint maidir leis an tréimhse sin inar saolú ár Stáit.
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