Left-wing parties unite to fight poll

Socialist Party MEP Joe Higgins will attempt to reclaim his Dublin West seat in the next general election, he announced today.

Richard Boyd Barrett, a councillor for People Before Profit Alliance, and former Tipperary South TD Seamus Healy, will also contest the election under a new United Left Alliance.

The new grouping expects to field some 20 candidates. Dublin councillors Clare Daly and Joan Collins are also involved.

Mr Higgins said the Socialist Party, the People Before Profit Alliance and the Tipperary-based Workers and Unemployed Action Group had come together to provide a “left alternative to the establishment parties”.

Sinn Féin was accused of being prepared to “prop up” Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour in a coalition government, at the launch in a Dublin city centre hotel this morning.

“The outcome of the forthcoming election is almost a foregone conclusion insofar as Fianna Fáil and the Greens will be annihilated. Fine Gael and Labour’s sole virtue is that they are not Fianna Fáil yet they are wedded to the same cutback agenda for the next four years,” Mr Higgins said.

“The presence of a number of genuine left TDs in the Dáil offering a visible political alternative will be a massive pole of attraction to workers, unemployed and young people and can become a real factor in the unfolding crisis.”

Mr Boyd Barrett said it was time for people to take to the streets in protest and called for high participation in Saturday’s march. “We all need to get behind it and send the strongest possible message to this rotten government: get out now.”

Mr Healy said the new alliance would not participate in coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. “We will not rest until the interests of Irish workers, employed and unemployed, are the first priority in this country”.