• Cabinet discusses HSA powers - should have power to inspect, shut down & fine

• Keelings & the meat factories should be top of the list for inspections

• Workers should elect safety committees as per 2005 act

Press Statement Friday, May 1, 2020

• HSE deal equates to €44,000 per bed, while NHS deal is €10,000

• Hospitals owned by Denis O’Brien & Larry Goodman, who have made their fortunes from questionable deals in the past

• Breakdown of costs must be published & hospitals must open their books

Link to full article here 

Press Statement: Paul Murphy TD (Solidarity - People Before Profit candidate for Dublin South West)

• Sexism woven into fabric of Irish society

• Oxfam report shows 17 Irish billionaires but Unpaid work by Irish women worth €24 billion - we need a National Childcare Service now!

• We want to live, not just exist!

It’s clear from the figures released today by Oxfam that women are bearing an unfair and unequal burden, producing the equivalent of ⅛ of the national economy with unpaid care work in the home. This inequality is effectively state policy from a government responsible for among the lowest paid maternity and parental leave in Europe and the highest childcare costs. Combined with the gender pay gap, this ensures it’s women rather than men that take leave or go part time. 

This bakes in inequality in childcare and housework from the very start. At the other end of the life cycle it’s also women who do the vast majority of unpaid care of elderly relatives. The beneficiaries are employers, especially big business and billionaires, which get away with not topping up maternity benefit, not paying for quality public childcare through taxes on wealth and profits and systematically underpaying women workers. Instead it’s women who pay the price of raising the next generation of workers through their unpaid and low paid labour. Meanwhile the insurance companies are driving up the cost of childcare and laughing all the way to the bank. 

Enough is enough. We need to close the gender pay gap, targeting first the industries that employ disproportionate numbers of women and mandating equal rates of pay and benefits or part time workers which are disproportionately women. Childcare workers, teachers, nurses and cleaners are just some of the female-dominated jobs that deserve a pay raise!

Press Statement: Paul Murphy TD (Solidarity - People Before Profit candidate for Dublin South West)

• Taoiseach suffering from Stockholm Syndrome

• Rewarding tax avoiders sums up Fine Gael and Fianna Fail

• While global inequality deepens

Multinational companies like Apple hold the country to ransom by threatening job losses if they are forced to pay a fare share in taxes on their massive profits.

Tim Cook being presented an award by the Taoiseach today sums up the mentality of the political establishment. This is the head of a company which has avoided €14.3 billion in tax in Ireland according to the European Commission.

Instead of pursuing him for the tax his company owes, the Irish government is spending €7.5 million in public money on a court case to ensure he doesn’t have to pay it, and now are giving him an award! It seems the political establishment are suffering from a sort of ‘Stockholm syndrome’!

Contrast this with Varadkar’s ‘Welfare cheats cheat us all’ campaign built on figures that were exaggerated by a magnitude of ten! If someone on social welfare got an extra €100, they would be pursued vigorously. Yet Tim Cook is rewarded for robbing us of €14.3billion - money that could be used to build public housing, invest in renewable energy, and in building a National Health Service.

It is no wonder that the latest Oxfam report indicates that global inequality has deepened even further. Just 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 60% of the world’s population. Meanwhile in an Ireland of homelessness, trolley crises and attacks on pensioners, we have the fifth highest number of billionaires per capita. These stories are directly linked. The race to the bottom in terms of corporate and wealth taxation, which Ireland has been a part of driving, is resulting in this inequality. A socialist alternative - based on democratic public ownership and planning for people’s needs and our planet - is desperately needed.

Paul Murphy TD said “The Taoiseach’s reaction to the brutal events which saw a homeless man in a tent being swept away like rubbish encapsulated the government’s refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of its policies. It summed up how many people feel the  government treats them.            

The idea that Varadkar would try to shirk responsibility when he has been in government for the last nine years and has made repeated decisions exacerbating the crisis shows how arrogant he is. 

The housing crisis is intensely political. It is a consequence of political decisions made by parties whose TDs are landlords and who represent the interests of the big landlords and developers. Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour cannot hide from their responsibilities. 

The election should be used to not only send a message rejecting their policies, but to elect socialist TDs to represent the interests of workers and tenants instead of landlords. A people-power movement, like on the water charges, is the only way we will force a future government to build public housing and cut rents"

Press Statement: Paul Murphy TD (RISE - part of Solidarity - People Before Profit) 14 January 2020

• Real alternative to Punch and Judy of FF and FG exists

• Green New Deal needed to tackle climate change

• People power movements and socialist representatives have made a real difference

Speaking ahead of his election campaign launch in Tallaght this evening, Paul Murphy TD of RISE, who is standing as a Solidarity - People Before Profit candidate, commented:

It looks like Leo Varadkar is going for a short snap election in order to avoid a real scrutiny of his government’s record of crises. While these masters of spin trot out blatant lies about the number of social houses built, they preside over the worst housing crisis in the state’s history, a deepening and deadly health crisis and public services that are at breaking point. These would be a stain on any government’s record yet Leo Varadkar has said that he is not ashamed of this record of leaving 4,000 children homeless. Maybe he’s talking about the record profits for landlords and private developers? These results are the inevitable consequences of their Thatcherite policies, which mean profits for the wealthy and crises for the rest.

The refusal by Fine Gael to take the radical action necessary to tackle climate change, blocking the Climate Emergencies Bill and pushing ahead with the Shannon LNG terminal, is criminal.  It throws away our future for the sake of profits. The science is clear, we have ten years to transition our society while ensuring no community or worker is left behind. We can’t afford to give these foot draggers more time.  We need a Green New Deal with socialist policies.