People First says gap between rich and poor widening
The People First Easter 1916 Commemoration Ceremony took place in Sligo also this Easter Sunday.
Led by flag-bearers carrying the Tri-colour and the Plough and the Stars, participants in the ceremony marched from Cairns Drive to the Republican Plot in Sligo cemetery where Sligo County Councillor Declan Bree introduced this year’s guest speaker Eddie Glackin of the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum.
“Ten years after the banking crisis, Ireland’s moneyed elite are wealthier than ever before. Over the past 12 months the combined wealth of Ireland’s 300 richest people has risen to ¤79 billion.
“Ireland now has one of the highest proportions of billionaires per head of population – one billionaire for every 313,000 people. That is more than twice the proportion of people with similar wealth in more affluent countries such as Kuwait, the United States and Sweden,” Mr Glackin said in his oration.
“How can such obscene wealth exist side by side with the growing levels of homelessness and poverty in our country?”
“There certainly is a recovery for the wealthy elite and for big business,” he said. “Profits are up, CEOs’ bonuses are up, shareholders dividends are growing. But at the same time ordinary workers are seeing their living standard under constant downward pressure, with many workers rights being eroded through precarious employment practices.
“Clearly it is now time that decisions that affect the people and the country were removed from the establishment politicians and their paymasters in big business and put under democratic public control. Maybe then we could start to build the Republic that the men and women of 1916 fought so bravely for,” he said.
Mr Corey Whyte, who presided at the ceremony said: “Our fight for fairness and equality within Irish society comes at a time when the gap between rich and poor has never been greater.
“A time when our fellow citizens are being allowed to die on Irish streets as a direct result of continued failed policies. Policies that have seen thousands of children, women and men denied the basic foundation for stability, in having a place to call home.
“It is in the context of such failed policies that we must look at the Ireland of today and ask ourselves how far the ideals and values of Easter 1916 have been realised,” he said.
Following the oration as pipers played a lament a wreath and floral tributes were laid at the Republican Plot by Ms Brenda Barr on behalf of People First; Ms Sinead Costello on behalf of the Connolly Forum and by Ms Laura Scanlon on behalf of the People’s Movement.
The ceremony concluded with the National Anthem.
Earlier those participating in the event laid floral tributes at the grave of Republican Socialist and People First activist Marcus Murray.