Simon Harris — We Don’t Need Another Tory Taoiseach

In early 2019, as the cost of building a new children’s hospital skyrocketed, Fianna Fáil were scathing in their criticism of the then Health Minister Simon Harris. They said he was “out of his depth” and said he was too young for the brief.

But it wasn’t his youth that was the problem - it was the Irish Tory politics that Harris shared with Fianna Fáil. He was even a member of their party and canvassed for Fianna Fáil politician Dick Roche.

Harris looks set to be the next Taoiseach of Ireland and while the Irish Times is writing sickening pieces of fawning trivia over the new leader of Ireland his true face is very different to his fake liberal exterior.

He worked as assistant to former disgraced justice minister Frances Fitzgerald when she was a senator, and then after working as a councillor, he was elected to the Dáil as its youngest TD back in 2011.

Like Varadkar he was anti-choice until he realised the extent of damage the austerity years had done to the establishment vote and they did a quick about turn to appeal to working class people who wanted out of the dark days of Church control and cover up.

Although these Irish Tory politicians only embraced change on a skin deep level. The strategy was clear - offer token changes on social issues while defending the deep inequality at the heart of Irish capitalism.

They’d make you homeless but were happy to pose with a rainbow flag. But it’s Harris’ stint as Minister For Health that showed his true colours.

Not only did the outsourcing, privatisation and subsidies to profiteers continue but he was accused of hypocrisy for his stance on the role of the nuns in the National Maternity Hospital. Years before Harris had lambasted the St Vincent’s Care Group, which is owned by the Sisters of Charity religious order, for using a public hospital as collateral for bank loans to build a private car park and health facility.

He changed his tune once the debate about the maternity hospital flared up. He even said the redress money owed by the nuns to victims of abuse shouldn’t come into the debate about ownership of the maternity hospital before granting them the hospital.

Harris was also Minister for Health when the Cervical Check scandal broke and it was revealed the outsourcing to private labs had led to wrong diagnosis and cancer deaths of many women in Ireland.

Harris was accused of misleading the Dáil when the scandal erupted and failed to tell the truth about which US labs had the most false negatives on cervical cancer screen tests. More importantly, he did absolutely nothing to re-establish public run cytology labs in Ireland.

At least 21 women died because of the neoliberal philosophy of outsourcing public health to private labs and Harris has blood on his hands. The mainstream media is making a big deal about his personal life and the fact he’s married to a nurse yet when nurses went on strike in 2019 Harris threatened them with financial penalties.

As Minister for Education he has failed students as vulture funds now own more student accommodation in Dublin than DCU, UCD and Trinity College combined, with 7,538 beds compared to 5,602.

The situation is the same in Cork where investment funds own at least 3,099 student accommodation beds compared to the 1,530 beds owned by University College Cork.

But you wouldn’t know any of this from the headlines over the last few days talking about our new “TikTok” Taoiseach.

Simon Harris is a “TikTok” Tory who has learned to mouth hypocritical sweet nothings to liberals while wholeheartedly defending the gross inequality that defines 21st century Ireland. When it comes to housing or health expect more of the same from our new Tory Taoiseach.

We need to kick out the establishment parties in the June local elections and any coming general election - that will weaken the ruling elite. But it doesn’t finish them off. They control the machinery of state and will use it to sabotage any effort at real change.

That’s why we also need to build people power movements of working class people to fight for a society where all the vast wealth we produce is under the democratic control of those who produce it. That’s real socialism and it’s the only way we’ll escape from permanent crises.