Yesterday, Joe Costello, the Labour Party TD in Dublin Central, made a big deal of supporting the “Community & Voluntary Sector”, outlining how hard pressed this sector actually is and highlighting how severe the crisis has become for so many people – every month: there are about 2,500 homes with ESB disconnection and about 400 Bórd Gais disconnections as well.

He took a dim view of the situation and has called on the government “to ensure that the cuts to the community and voluntary sector are stopped and that, at least, the existing services are maintained.” If these are strong words, they mean nothing … except that he wants votes from this sector in the next election.  Even stating that we should maintain the existing level of services is a laugh, they are already in chaos!

Yesterday also, his party leader, Eamon Gilmore, was quick to reassure the Taoiseach “that Labour accepts the target of reducing the deficit to 3% by 2014” – so what then is Mr. Costello proposing in regards to finance?  To achieve the stated 3% means devastating cuts in all social services, he doesn’t think the corporations and banks are going to cough up, does he?

So, what’s our point?

Labour is following the SAME POLICY in this crisis as the FF/Green coalition and the same as Fine Gael – they ALL agree on the budget constraints, the cutbacks, they just say they have different emphasis and timings etc.  In other words, they all agree that the cat must be skinned, they just want to discuss the best way of doing this – but in the end the result for the cat is the same.

Joe Costello’s cynical bleating on behalf of the Community & Voluntary sector is part of the drama played out by the‘Cartel of parties against the people’, they are preparing the next lot of ‘leaders’ for us lie down in front of – Let’s not have it!