Programme

This is our programme. This is what we stand for. It clearly outlines the kinds of demands we raise today and the destination we want to get to.

Socialists raise workers’ fighting spirit and class consciousness and oppose anything that limits workers’ horizons. As the working class is an international and diverse class, we stand for united fronts of action that unite workers against the existing establishment. Within these movements we battle those who hold our class back while we advocate for the need to challenge capitalism.

The following minimum demands are some of the key issues we fight on today, but we will raise new demands as our class needs them:

End the housing crisis, establish a state construction company with worker input to build universal public housing, serious rent controls, ban on evictions, take vacant buildings, resource all new estates.
Build an all Ireland NHS, a one tier free health service paid for by heavy taxation on the billionaires and millionaires. Nationalise the private hospitals and fight for public nursing homes.
Education for all, for a state funded third level system, abolish fees, cap students’ rents, fight to double the education budget, free early years childcare.
Abolish ‘90 - the 1990 industrial relations act is a undemocratic limitation on the rights of all workers, it bans solidarity actions, effective picketing and political strikes. Tear it up.
A 4 day work week for all workers with no loss of pay, for a living wage. We fight for the highest possible wages for all workers and fight against bogus self employment.
Less taxes on workers, make the millionaires and billionaires pay up, close corporate tax loopholes, end tax exile status for billionaires like Denis O’Brien.
We support a “Left Government” externally and case by case because we need to get rid of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but parties like Sinn Féin & Labour need to be disciplined and forced to deliver.
Put all politicians on the average worker’s wage
No to NATO, No EU Army, defend neutrality we fought against an Empire for centuries. We will not be cannon fodder in rich men’s wars.
For a United Ireland, end partition and remove British troops. We would vote yes in a Border Poll while using any campaign to argue for a 32 County Workers’ Republic.
No carbon tax on workers, make corporations pay for climate change. Nationalise energy companies, cap energy bills for workers and fight for free public transport, system change not individual blame.
Break beef barons like billionaire Larry Goodman to pay for a transition to sustainable farming for small and medium farmers, we oppose neoliberal trade deals like Mercosur and CETA.
Abolish Irish Water and put all water and waste services back under public control, enshrined in the constitution.
Justice for all victims of Garda and State violence like the family of Terence Wheelock.
Separate Church and State religion is a person’s private business, get the Church out of schools and hospitals, use their vast wealth to pay survivors of abuse and house the homeless.
Legalise, regulate and educate making drugs a health issue ending the scourge of gang violence and addiction that blights working class communities.
Free contraception, funding for domestic violence refuge spaces, for free, safe, legal and local access to reproductive healthcare.
Free Palestine, support resistance to Apartheid Israel, isolate Israel in every way, for a one state solution to restore Palestine.
No Hate Speech legislation because these laws can be used against the working class.
Immigration is not a crime, every pair of hands is a pair of hands that can work, we need to end profiteering in IPAS, we will fight for community integration and resources as we do with every population change.

None of these reforms are secure until workers have political power. Without a 32 County Workers’ Republic the establishment will roll back on gains we make.

We will keep fighting until we workers are in the driving seat. To do that we need a people power revolution. We want to dismantle the Dáil and Stormont in favour of a Workers’ State made up of democratic workplace, industry wide and community assemblies which will elect delegates to a working class national assembly. Once workers are in power we suggest implementing the following maximum demands:

Recallable representatives on average wage to all assemblies and to the workers’ national assembly.
For a democratically planned economy controlled by the working class.
Set up a single state bank under democratic control.
Nationalise all major industries under democratic control.
Nationalise the private hospitals, nursing homes, big pharma companies and private insurers.
Nationalise all vulture fund landlords, there would never be a housing crisis in a planned economy.
Regulate the market sector which would still exist in the initial years of a workers’ state but keep it democratically controlled and subordinate to an expanding planned sector.
Confiscate the wealth & assets of billionaire tax exiles.
The Catholic Church owns many properties, land, schools and hospitals. They should be the property of the workers’ state. Personal religious beliefs are no business of a workers’ state.
Integrate City and Country as part of a sustainable approach to economic planning.
Incentivise cooperative and sustainable farming.
Community canteens and laundries.
Abolish the Guards and PSNI replace them with democratically accountable community patrols.
Abolish the Irish Defence Forces command and establish a working class Defence Force with its own democratic assemblies and representatives in the workers’ national assembly.
Stand up to Brussels, defend the sovereignty of our workers’ state and call on workers across Europe to rise up in our defence if we are threatened.
Become a beacon of anti-imperialism, assist all working class and liberation movements internationally, stand in solidarity with all progressive movements.

A Workers’ Republic would allow the working class majority to have a secure life, enjoy full employment and exercise real democratic control over the direction of the country. The idle classes - the bosses and landlords - should be made to work.

Enemies of the working class will say “they would take your home, your property!” But that’s nonsense. The only “property” socialists are after is the factories, offices, machinery and immense wealth hoarded by the billionaire boss class, who live off the backs of our labour. Our labour created all that wealth.

Real democracy means having a say in how it is used. Personal property like the family home of a worker is no business of a workers’ state. In fact everyone would be guaranteed a home for the first time and homelessness would be a thing of the past.

The great socialist James Connolly once said that “the only true prophets are they who carve out the future which they announce”. We are not just in the business of predicting possible futures, we are going to fight for it every single day in our unions, in our workplaces and in working class communities.

If you agree join the Reds!