THE SOCIALIST Party has said it will be fighting its local election campaign on how the Government’s economic policies impacted on communities throughout the country.
The party launched its election campaign in Dublin yesterday saying it would be campaigning on national issues. At a press conference, it was also disclosed that 11 candidates will be be on the party slate. They will stand in four local authority areas: Fingal, Dublin South, Cork City and Drogheda (town council).
The party’s former TD Joe Higgins, who is also running the European election, was confirmed as a candidate in the Castleknock electoral area of Fingal County Council. The party’s strongest presence by far is in this north Dublin county council where it has two sitting councillors among its seven candidates. The party’s Fingal councillors are Ruth Coppinger and Clare Daly. Its other councillors are Mick Murphy in South Dublin and Mick Barry in Cork.
The party’s slogan is: “A campaigning alternative to establishment parties.”
Joe Higgins said that there was a very strong anti-Government sentiment among the electorate. “There is a smouldering anger, a sullen anger and a real resentment,” he said. “We have a Government that has been in power for 12 years. There is a small cabal of profiteers. Outrageously, the Government gave them such control over the economy that they were in a position to crash the economy when the bubble burst,” he said.
Mr Murphy said yesterday that the campaign had more of a feel of a general election and said that the big national issues were what people on the doorstep were focused on.
Eight of the party’s candidates were present at the conference at which the party defended its stance of not joining any controlling group on any local authority.
Cllr Clare Daly said the party was prepared to wait until its viewpoint was the majority viewpoint. Several of its candidates said it would work with like-minded politicians and parties. It expects to make gains in the election. Mr Higgins said that it, among others, would be targeting people who voted for the Green Party in 2007.
The party’s main campaigning platform is to resist cuts by the Fianna Fáil and Green Party coalition that it says will wreck local services. It is also calling on the electorate to punish the Government parties for what it says is their policy of “making ordinary people pay for the crisis”.
The party also said it would strongly oppose any attempt to reintroduce water charges. Mr Higgins said: “I have a warning to [Minister for the Environment] John Gormley that if he tries to introduce water charges, there will be a massive public campaign to oppose it.”
In specific references to the cutbacks Ms Coppinger said that the Fingal capital programme had been “savaged” by €55 million following prohibition on further funding from the development levy.
Ms Daly said that if councils failed to deliver infrastructure to communities in the course of a boom, then it would be a real battle to get it done now. The cuts that have been imposed by Government so far were “the tip of the iceberg”.