New Issue of the Revolutionary Communist out – Poverty amongst plenty: build the communists!

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The third issue of the Revolutionary Communist is now out! Read the editorial of this issue below, and get in touch to order your copy now! You can also pick up a yearly subscription for 10 euros, or pay a solidarity subscription of 20 euros (or more) to support the communist press.


2025 had barely begun when Irish capitalism set another one of its bleak records. 

For the first time since statistics began, more than 15 thousand are now in emergency homeless accommodation in the South – a shocking 50 percent increase compared to the same figure this time five years ago. And unfortunately, it is only going to get much worse in the coming months.

Inequality in Irish society has grown massively over the last decades. According to Oxfam, the two richest Irish billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of the population. The top 1 percent have significantly more, and the bottom 50 percent significantly less, than their average European counterpart – and the gap between the two has never been as vast. 

While multinationals are raking in unprecedented profits, over a million people in Ireland are living in poverty. A staggering 20 percent of children experience deprivation. Indeed, material deprivation has been on the rise for the second year in a row. 

One in 10 parents accessed food banks last year and demand for soup kitchens has more than doubled. Meanwhile, in an effort to clean up its image for tourist season, Dublin City Council is discussing to outlaw on-street soup runs – a motion worthy of being read side-by-side with Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal

And the official homelessness figures, as horrifying as they are, reveal only the tip of the iceberg. Even a report for the European Commission was forced to refer to them as “statistical obfuscation if not corruption.” The figures don’t account for those forced to couchsurf, for rough sleepers on the streets (up 15 percent since last year), those in temporary accommodation provided by their Local Authority, brutalised women and children in violence refuges, and asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution. That is, tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand or more, are simply not accounted for.

The stark inequality is literally killing the most deprived and vulnerable in our society. The mortality rate across unskilled workers is almost double that of managers, and life expectancy for the bottom 20 percent is a full 5 years less than that of the top 20 percent. 

This is the reality of living in Ireland today. 

All is Good

And yet, you see, “there are many reasons to be positive and hopeful,” Simon Harris reassured us during the last election campaign when asked about increasing poverty in Ireland. 

Sure, things have been bad so far, but thanks to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s conscientious economic leadership everything will be better starting from tomorrow. Workers just need to be a little bit extra patient. 

But it seems this ‘tomorrow’ never arrives. On the contrary, it is precisely because of the so-called “Irish economic model” the government defends that the living standards of the working class are stuck in this quagmire. 

Their economic policy is easily stated: let the imperialists, the bosses and the landlords exploit Irish workers as they see fit, whatever money we can skim on top of that exploitation we’ll be glad to take it. On this they all agree. Is anyone surprised that the crisis of infrastructure and the gap between rich and poor spiralled out of control under their rule?

Now after four years in coalition together – after all but promising to come back in coalition before the election – we had to witness the act of them campaigning ‘against’ each other, and even weeks of horse trading in coalition formation talks. 

And for what? More of the same as the last one hundred years. Is it any wonder that fewer and fewer are ready to engage with this pantomime? 

Every political event in 2024 – the two Referenda, the local and European elections, the general elections – registered record low turnouts in their respective categories. In fact, 59 percent of Irish people think that “most politicians only care about the interests of the rich and powerful.” 

For a little while, Sinn Féin was able to capitalise on this seething anti-establishment anger.  However, disillusionment in Sinn Féin is now creating a massive vacuum in Irish politics.

Build the Communists!

The forces of genuine communism are currently too small to fill up this political vacuum. But, we are actively fighting to change that! 

As workers and youth look for a way out of the impasse, we will see all sorts of political tendencies and movements – to the left and to the right – arise and collapse in the coming period. But none of them will be able to fundamentally solve the problems facing workers and youth on this island.

The only solution is to overthrow capitalism, which is the root cause of the crisis. To do this, we need a Bolshevik organisation steeled in the genuine ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Connolly. 

This is precisely the organisation we are building. And 2024 has been a year of tremendous successes and leap forwards for the Revolutionary Communists of Ireland.

On the back of our achievements, in this issue, we are proud to launch a campaign of financial support to hire our first full-time revolutionary. Building a professional apparatus – entirely founded by our members and sympathisers – will act as a further catalyst for the building of the RCI. 

It will be the crowning achievement of a year of struggle, and it will perfectly position us to launch our offensive to get to the 100 active communists mark in 2025 – and from there to become a significant force in Irish politics in the stormy period ahead. 

As we continue to grow, so will our ability to leverage the ever intensifying global crisis of capitalism, to reach and recruit more and more revolutionaries into the ranks of communism.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And the building of a mass communist organisation begins with a single person joining. What are you waiting for then? Get in touch today and join the RCI!