Public Meeting: We need an Alternative Government

dublin | worker & community struggles and protests | event notice Wednesday February 11, 2009 23:45 by Colm Stephens - People Before Profit Dublin Central colmstephens at gmail dot com 087 2947100

Oppose the Cuts and Defend the Public Service

Speakers:
Colm Stephens, People Before Profit Local Election Candidate
Teachers United Representative
Owen McCormack, Busworkers Action Group

8.15 pm, Monday, 16 February, Parish Centre, Aughrim Street, Dublin 7

Time to Sack This Government
People Before Profit Offers a Real Alternative

The government has made it clear that it’s going to make ordinary people pay for the economic crisis. In the last few months it has:
• Tried to take the medical card off all pensioners
• Increased class sizes and introduced a range of cuts which will hurt the most vulnerable children
• Announced major cuts in the bus services on which ordinary people rely
• Slapped a 1% levy on all workers and a pension levy on all public servants including the lowest paid
• Stood still as unemployment has soared. They are predicting that 400,000 people could soon be out of work.
And there’s worse to come.
The strange thing is that the people affected by these cuts and levies did not create the economic mess. The rich friends of the government have got off scott free. The bankers, developers and builders have not been asked to put their hands in their pockets. Yet we all had to bail out the banks.
People Before Profit says it’s time to let the government know that we have had enough. We say make the rich pay for the mess they created. We are calling for
• A wealth levy on the 33,000 millionaires in the country
• Increases in capital gains and corporation tax
• The closing off of tax loopholes including those for property developers
• Higher tax rates for top earners
• A programme of spending to build schools and houses and give jobs to the unemployed
• Free education for unemployed workers to help them retrain