Cohesive opposition to welfare and spending cuts will only come from a strong left-wing presence in the Dáil, the United Left Alliance (ULA) has said.
The alliance, which represents a spectrum of political parties including the Socialist Party and People Before Profit Alliance, said the three largest parties were all signed up to an agenda of "savage" spending cuts in order to bail out the banks.
Any apparent disagreement between Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil was an "illusion", said ULA candidate in Dublin West, Joe Higgins.
"Fundamentally neither party represents any change in current policy which is focused in cutting the livelihood workers, the unemployed and social welfare recipients in order to fund the bailout of the banks."
Joining him at a photo-call outside Anglo-Irish Bank headquarters in Dublin today, ULA candidate in Dun Laoghaire, Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett said it would make no difference whether the next Government was led by Fine Gael or by a coalition with Labour.
"That is a false debate. All the parties support the plan to continue sinking money into the banks, and which will sink the Irish economy," he said. "The ULA are the only ones that have been absolutely consistent in our opposition to the bank bail-out from the start. All the other parties have been at best wobbly on it."
He said the alliance would mobilise a public in a campaign against the cuts. "Those millions of euro going into the banks should be invested in jobs, services, infrastructure, housing."
Clare Daly, a candidate in Dublin North, said it was clear the Labour Party had accepted the austerity and cuts agenda. "It is effectively Fine Gael-lite. Fine Gael proposes cuts and extra taxes of €6 billion per year. Labour are only a little way behind at €4.5 billion. Fine Gael plans to axe 30,000 jobs in the public sector with Labour putting the figure at 18,000".
Mr Boyd Barrett said the alliance was hopeful of taking between four and nine seats. "We are getting tremendous feedback on the canvas. We'd hope the ULA will take enough seats to form our own technical group in the Dáil. If we don't we would be very happy to work with like-minded left independents."
He said it would offer determined opposition "to all of those who would seek to inflict further pain on PAYE workers, the unemployed and the poor" in the next Dáil.
