The number of children living in poverty nearly doubled last year, meanwhile the wealth of Ireland’s billionaires rose by €13 billion in the same period.
Leeches like Michael O’Leary and Denis O’Brien are making a very real killing while 100,000 children are now living in consistent poverty, going to sleep cold and hungry only to wake up not knowing when their next meal might be.
These stark figures come from the recently published report from the group Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA). The CEO of CRA, Tanya Ward, pointed the finger squarely at who is to blame for this crime:
“These are children for whom a decent standard of living and aspirations of a better future diminish day by day. This poverty is not inevitable. Policy decisions and budget investments determine the fate of these children and young people.”
Years of austerity at the hands of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have created this situation. Still today while swimming in unprecedented budget surpluses, they will happily allow 100,000 children to starve if it means a petty few billionaires can live and eat like kings.
But fear not! The government has promised a solution will eventually come about. These parasites propose providing relief in the form of universal hot school meals… by 2030! Unbeknownst to us, these children can apparently survive years without a consistent source of food! But even this ‘solution’ does not tackle the “holiday hunger” when these children are away from school.
The reality is that FF and FG cannot solve this crisis, because they are not the ones who really run this country – they are only their servile lackeys. The people who run this country are the ones in the boardrooms – above all the owners of the big multinational tech and pharma companies – which control most of Ireland’s economic output. That is why the government will fight tooth and nail to protect Apple’s profits in court but won’t lift a finger to help starving Irish children.
Only when the working class takes control of society will we be able to end poverty once and for all. That is why we must meet the ‘modest proposals’ of our ruling class with our own moderate demand, that of the great martyr and son of the Irish working class, James Connolly: ‘Our demands most moderate are: We only want the Earth!’
