by Alan Jacques
ANTI Austerity Alliance doomsayer Cian Prendiville has predicted 2015 to be a year of “unprecedented struggle”.
However, the Limerick City North councillor also pointed out that the people have “found their voice” in the last 12 months, and will now use it to demand a recovery in our public services and living standards.
Cllr Prendiville believes 2015 will see a series of struggles including against water charges, for investment in housing and health care, as well the ongoing struggle of secondary school teachers.
“In the last year, workers and the unemployed have risen off their knees, and begun to fight back, in particular on water charges where we have the government on the ropes. I don’t think people are going to kneel back down in the next year, but rather I think we can deliver the knock-out blow to this government,” Cllr Prendiville predicts.
“People now feel their power, they see how when we are organised and active the power of the people is greater than that of the people in power,” he adds.
According to Cllr Prendiville, the lessons learned from the water charges struggle will be applied in 2015 to other issues.
“It is not just water charges, but rather unending austerity for the 99 per cent while the one per cent see their profits soar. Now that people have found their voice, I believe they will use it in the next year to speak up and fight for public investment in housing and health to address the crises in those sectors,” the AAA councillor said.
He also went on to predict further political radicalisation in 2015.
“Workers and the unemployed, the 99 per cent, are fed up with the old politics of simply voting once every five years to decide which representative of the one per cent will rule over us. They are looking for a radical alternative, as is seen in the rise of groups like the Anti Austerity Alliance,” he concluded.
