SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams has appealed to those who had refused to pay the household charge to vote No in the May referendum on the EU fiscal compact, which he described as an affront to the Proclamation and those who fought in the Easter Rising.
Mr Adams said yesterday it was clear the austerity policies of the Fine Gael-Labour Coalition were proving as unsuccessful as those of the previous Fianna Fáil-led administration with disastrous consequences for workers and their families.
“That is one good reason for opposing the austerity treaty in the May referendum,” he said. “This treaty would entrench austerity policies in the Constitution. That is not the vision of 1916. It is the complete opposite of the Proclamation.”
Mr Adams accused the Fine Gael-led Government, backed by Fianna Fáil, of seeking to hand over sovereignty and democratic rights to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels, Strasbourg and Frankfurt.
“I would appeal to the 50 per cent of citizens who refused to pay the household charge, and the many others who were coerced and bullied into paying it, to make a stand against the Government’s austerity policies by voting No in the referendum.”
Mr Adams said the austerity policies pursued by Fine Gael and Labour were resulting in stealth tax after stealth tax being imposed on citizens who are paying for the greed of bankers and the bad policies of the former Fianna Fáil- Green government.
The universal social charge introduced by Fianna Fáil and pursued by this Government, together with the household charge, water charges, septic tank charges and VAT increases, along with cutting public services and wage cuts, had brought the domestic economy to its knees, he said.
At an Easter Rising commemoration in Bandon, west Cork, Mr Adams said the modern State had failed the 1916 leaders.
