Monday 22 February 2016

THERE’S A RUMOUR GOING AROUND…


There’s a rumour going around
– You might have heard it –
That Ireland’s on the rebound.
That we’re stable
And we’re able,
As we face a future bright
Full of promise and delight.

The ship of state is in safe harbour,
All thanks to the behaviour
Of Fine Gael and Labour,
Their eminence
In governance.

But we know the truth.

We know
Interest rates are at lows never seen before,
Bond yields at rates that have hit the floor,
And yet, and yet…
Last year on our national debt
we paid €8bn interest. Eight billion!
When those rates rise, we sink.
Recovery? We’re on the brink.

We know
The exchange rate collapse against pound and dollar
Has seen our exports soar,
Our tourism roar,
But again, and as with the interest rate failure
NOTHING to do with Fine Gael /Labour.

Quantitative Easing;
Oil price squeezing –
You think these are controlled by Joan or Enda,
Are remotely related to our government’s agenda?
No, my friends.

Rather than steering the ship to safe haven
We are cast adrift in stormy seas,
At the mercy of the wind, the waves,
Weighed down with ballast of increased debt
And abandoned to our own fate
While the captain and his officer corps
Take the lifeboat to a sunny shore,
Their pension booty safe, secure.

Recovery? Stability? For who?

We know, because we know the truth.

There’s a rumour going around
– You might have heard it –
That jobs have been created,
Unemployment has abated
And the country’s back on track.

Jobs? Heading towards full employment?
What kind of jobs? What kind of employment?
We know the truth, the real numbers;
The part-time employed,
The under-employed,
The job-bridge scam-bridged;
And then, those who are made totally invisible,
Who can’t even get on the register. Risible. Totally risible.

And this isn’t to even mention emigration,
A nation stripped of a generation,
Our youth forced out by the anti-youth bias
Of a cold, short-sighted government.
‘We can’t afford ye - get ye gone
And we’ll call ye anon,
When we need ye!’

There’s a rumour going around
– You might have heard it –
That Enda took the hard decisions,
Made only necessary incisions
On the weakest of the weak,
On the poorest of the poor,
On the sickest of the sick,
On the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.
And – shamefully – on the venerable,
Their hard-won legacy
Inexorably undone.

Hard decisions? Hitting the softest targets again and again
While protecting the powerful from sharing the pain?
We know the truth of it.

There’s a rumour going around
– You might have heard it –
That the Promissory Notes were destroyed,
Great ingenuity deployed
And it saved us €20 billion.

There’s even a rumour going around
That on the new P Note deal
We’re making money
On destroying money.
I mean, is that for real?

We know the truth.
Trichet barked his threat
And ALL that private debt
Was transferred to us
In one fell, foul swoop.
Debt slaves for generations
To a new Empire of subjugators,
Betrayed by our own.

Yes, there’s a rumour going around
– You might have heard it –
Of Stability and Recovery.
They’ll promise the earth but ‘twill be no surprise
If all that we get is mud in our eyes.

Because we know the TRUE legacy
Of this Fine Gael/Labour confederacy.

The Irish Water debacle;
The Property Charge debacle;
The HSE debacle;
The homeless debacle;
The hunger and poverty debacle;
The flooding debacle;
The Siteserv debacle;
The IBRC wind-up debacle;
The hasty and costly NAMA fire-sale of assets debacle;
The Eircode debacle;
The Promissory Notes debacle;
The Banking Inquiry debacle;
The firing of the Garda Commissioner debacle;
And on and on and on.

Stability? Recovery?
In Ireland 2016
We struggle to make ends meet,
Ends this government has stretched beyond breaking point.
‘No cuts to welfare or pension’ they chant!
But that half-truth is exposed
As we daily deal with regressive charges imposed.

We know the truth
Because we LIVE the truth.

We bury our dead,
Those for whom life under your rule became so repressive,
So depressive,
That by their own hand, they end it;
Not because they want to die,
But because you have crushed their spirit.

We nurse our sick,
We care for our infirm,
For our venerable,
For our vulnerable,
Those whom this coward regime has brutalised
As you vandalised
Our social services.

Oh yes, we know the truth.

Our resources squandered,
National assets plundered,
Our oil, our gas, our fishing-grounds,
Given away for a song.
Sovereignty surrendered
Without even an argument.

It’s not just that Fianna Fáil
destroyed our economy,
Or Fine Gael/Labour
destroyed our society,
It’s that between them all,
By their craven submission to Trichet’s threats,
By their coward assumption of private debts,
They have bruised the soul of a noble nation,
A tale of betrayal
On an ignoble scale.
100 years after 1916,
We are slaves again,
New chains and a new empire.
We know the truth of it.

We’ve made our own discovery
Of this recovery
And we know;
We don’t just need to rearrange
The deck-chairs on this ship of state –
We need change, REAL change.

On Friday February 26th 2016
100 years after Easter 1916,
Let there be a new Rising.