"Vote NO to Lisbon"

Speech by Fergal Moore at the Eve of All-Ireland Rally, Dublin 2009.

We assemble today in O'Connell Street as Ireland is gripped by a period of economic instability the likes of which we have not seen for many a generation. James Connolly, who fought here, and Big Jim Larkin, whose statue stands behind me, would surely tell us 'we told you so'. Capitalism, that they spent their lives struggling against is shown up for the greedy, putrid and parasitical system that it is.

The gombeen men of Fianna Fáil have really outdone themselves this time. In order to facilitate their buddies who used to patronise the big tent in Galway they have promised 54 billion of tax payers money to cover their dodgy loans. This at a time when the health service is in tatters, schools are run down and there are over 400,000 on the dole in the 26 Counties alone. Republicans and economists had for years been telling Fianna Fáil that the property bubble could not last and that when it burst it would be the ordinary working people who would feel it the worst. We were labelled doom merchants and nay sayers. Bertie Ahern, the ultimate spiv, said that those who predicted the end of the bubble would be better off killing themselves. His hurtful remarks are all the more callous now as mortgage holders face years of negative equity, rising interest rates and unemployment.

It is no surprise that Fianna Fáil would rip off the Irish people to help the already super rich. This is the crowd who gave away our natural gas to Shell, who oversaw a system whereby land was rezoned willy nilly resulting in some areas having enough land zoned for residential purposes to do them for the next 40 or more years of predicted growth. This is the crowd who selected as ceann comhairle of Leinster House a man who spent 350,000 in three and a half years on expenses including flights and luxury hotels for his wife. Oblivious to the anger in the country they have foisted this NAMA on the workers to pay for the gambling debts of their big business friends.

The workers of Ireland do not need NAMA just as the workers do not need to be indebted for the equivalent of 10,000 euro for every man, woman and child in the country. What the workers need is justice. What the workers need is a guillotine here in O'Connell Street where they can watch the bloated, corrupt and thieving capitalists who have brought us to this go to their due reward.

Of course Fianna Fáil are not the only guilty ones in this. For over two years now they have been aided and abetted in their corruption and incompetence by the Greens. The Greens who have broken faith with their electorate time and again. Remember how before the election in 2007 they opposed the motorway through Tara and yet as soon as they got into power they showed themselves to be as power hungry and corrupt as the rest of them.

The lot of them have got to go. We are not talking about a few bad apples here, the whole barrel is spoiled. We must begin again with a new Ireland. The Irish people must be given the opportunity to create an Ireland where a man's worth is judged not by how much land his father left him or what politician he knows. Republican Sinn Fein, through our Éire Nua policy, envisage an Ireland free from cronyism, with local accountable democracy and where the worker is valued and not treated as some sort of commodity as he is in the EU.

Slowly the EU is turning from what was once a trading agreement between states into a super state to serve capitalist interests. The Lisbon Treaty, which was previously known as the EU Constitution, moves more power from Dublin and into Brussels. With weighted voting and the removal of the veto the larger states will be able to force their own desires on the rest. In effect we will be subservient to them. Germany, France, Britain, Spain and Italy are all former imperial powers who are well used to bossing other nations around. The Ancien Régime are the architects of the Lisbon Treaty and it serves their interests. Under Lisbon the EU will have a president unelected by the people and tellingly it will have a foreign minister pursuing a single foreign policy. At the same time member states are required to increase military spending. This at a time when there are soup kitchens in Dublin.

We in Republican Sinn Féin believe that Ireland should be free from foreign control whether that be control of the Six Counties by Westminster or control of the 26 by Brussels. The solution to our economic woes and our democratic deficit lies in the policy documents of Republican Sinn Féin; Éire Nua and Saol Nua. Following a British withdrawal from the 6 Counties the Irish people must decide for themselves how we will be governed. Republican Sinn Féin propose a federal Ireland based on the Republican and Socialist principles laid out in the Proclamation of 1916 and the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil of 1919. The gombeen men will be out of business and we will be masters of our own destinies free from foreign domination.

A No vote in the Lisbon referendum will ensure that those who have brought us to the brink of economic ruin will get the kicking that they deserve. Those who cheer loudest for Lisbon are the same ones who dreamed up NAMA. A strong No to Lisbon is as good as a No to Nama for we will not even get a chance to vote on that. I urge you, here in O'Connell Street where heroes fought and died for Irish Freedom, vote No to Lisbon.

An Phoblacht Abú.