The Socialist Party (in Irish Páirtí Sóisialach) is a political party active in Ireland. Until 2007 it was Ireland's only Marxist organisation with electoral representation in Dáil Éireann. It is affiliated to the Trotskyist Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). Political parties Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A political party is a political organization that seeks to attain political power within a government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The Dáil Chamber Dáil Éireann (pronounced ) is the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of the Republic of Ireland. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... The Committee for a Workers International (CWI) is an international association of Trotskyist Parties. ...

Formerly known as Militant Labour, then Militant Tendency, it adopted the name The Socialist Party in 1996. Like many other organisations affiliated to the CWI, from their foundation until the 1980s members of the organisation practiced entryism in the Irish Labour Party. In the early 1990s many of its members were expelled from Labour, and it was at this point they took an 'open turn' and established an independent organisation with the name Militant Labour. The Socialist Party now put forward the theoretical analysis that the Labour Party has changed in nature and is no longer a party of the working class. Militant Labour is the name that the Militant Tendency of the Labour Party in Ireland took after leaving in late 1980s. ... Irish Militant Tendency was the Irish section of the Committee for a Workers International in the 1970s and 1980s when it practiced entrism in the Irish Labour Party. ... Entryism (or entrism or enterism) is a political tactic by which an organisation encourages members to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely. ... Logo of the Irish Labour Party The Irish Labour Party (Irish: Páirti an Lucht Oibre) is the third largest political party in the Republic of Ireland. ...

The party is organised in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They produce a monthly newspaper called The Socialist (formerly Socialist Voice, The Voice, and Militant) and an irregular theoretical journal called Socialist View (formerly Socialism 2000). There is also an irregular e-zine called International Socialist Voice and an occasional free newspaper distributed to tens of thousands of homes in North and West Dublin called Fingal Socialist. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom lying in the northeast of the island of Ireland, covering 5,459 square miles (14,139 km², about a sixth of the islands total area). ... An Ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. ...

Electoral history

Through campaigning work it has built some electoral support, with Joe Higgins being elected to Dáil Eireann - the Irish parliament - and four other members elected to local councils in working class areas of Dublin and Cork. It has found it harder to gain an electoral foothold in Northern Ireland, but it has an important presence in the trade union movement there and an ever-growing youth wing. Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ... Dáil Éireann[1] is the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of the Republic of Ireland. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 51. ...

In the 1997 election, they returned one TD to Dáil Éireann - Joe Higgins (Dublin West) who became prominent during the Anti-Water Charges Campaign. In the 2002 election Joe Higgins retained his seat, and in the Dublin North constituency Councillor Clare Daly narrowly missed out on a second seat. The Irish general election of 1997 was held on Friday, June 6, 1997. ... A Teachta Dála (Irish for Dáil Deputy, pronounced chock-ta dawla) is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower chamber of the Irish Oireachtas or National Parliament. ... Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ... The Irish general election of 2002 was held on Friday 17 May 2002, just over three weeks after the dissolution of the 28th Dáil on Thursday 25 April by President Mary McAleese, at the request of the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. ... Dublin County Council was a local authority for the administrative county of County Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. ... Clare Daly is an Irish socialist politician and trade union activist. ...

In the 2004 local elections they gained two council seats, one in Dublin (Mick Murphy in the Tallaght ward) and another in Cork (Mick Barry in the Cork North Central ward). They also retained their two previous seats in Dublin's Fingal areas of Mulhuddart (Ruth Coppinger) and Swords (Clare Daly). In the European Elections held on the same day, Joe Higgins received 23,200 (5.5%) votes in the Dublin constituency, double his 1999 result, but missed out on a seat. In the 2007 Dail Election TD Joe Higgins failed to retain his seat in the Dublin West constituency. shelby was here 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mick Murphy is an Irish socialist elected representative. ... // WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... A ward is an electoral district used in local politics, most notably in England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and many cities in the United States and the federal district of Washington, DC. Wards are usually named after neighbourhoods... Mick Barry is the Socialist Party councillor for the Cork North Central ward in Cork. ... Cork City Council (previously known as Cork Corporation) is a local government organisation in Cork City, responsible for providing services to citizens in the areas of : Housing & Community, Roads & Transportation, Planning & Development, Amenity & Culture, and Environment. ... Statistics Province: Leinster County Town: Swords Code: D (FL proposed) Area: 448. ... // Mulhuddart (Mullach Eadrad in Irish) is a village in southwest County Fingal, Ireland, and is now effectively a suburb of Dublin city, being seven miles from the city centre. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 53. ... Clare Daly is an Irish socialist politician and trade union activist. ... The European Parliament Election, 2004 was the Republic of Ireland component of the European Parliament Election, 2004. ... Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ... A constituency is any cohesive corporate unit or body bound by shared structures, goals or loyalty. ... This article is about the general election in the Republic of Ireland. ... TD or td may stand for: Touchdown Chad, ISO 2-letter country code Tank destroyer Tardive dyskinesia, serious adverse effects usually caused by older antipsychotic drugs <td> (table cell delimiter tag), see HTML Teachta Dála, Member of lower house of Irish Parliament, Dáil Éireann Technical Director, cinematography and... Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ...

Trade union, campaigning and other extra-parliamentary activities

The Socialist Party is active in the trade union movement, arguing for more militant action in defence of workers’ interests. Members of the Socialist Party have been elected to several high ranking positions in the unions, most notably the CPSU and NIPSA where they hold the presidencies. It also holds influence in the Northern Irish branch of the FBU where its members played a key role in encouraging the FBU's split from the British Labour Party in 2004. A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... The Civil and Public Services Union (CPSU), is an Irish trade union for clerical and administrative grades in the civil service, the wider public sector and the private sector. ... NIPSA or the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance is a trade union based in Northern Ireland. ... The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) is the main union for firefighters in the United Kingdom. ... The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in England, Scotland and Wales. ...

The Socialist Party is also involved in many community campaigns, including leading a victorious struggle against a domestic water charge, commonly known as the 'water tax' in Dublin in the mid-1990s. More recently, it has played a significant role in campaigns against a refuse collection charge, similarly commonly known as the 'bin tax', in the Republic of Ireland and a water charge in Northern Ireland. It has been deeply involved in the movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Palestine and continues to be active in campaigns against fascism, racism, low pay exploitation and religious sectarianism. They are also environmental advocates and supporters of rights for workers, women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals. This article is about the Palestinian territories as a geopolitical phenomenon. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... Manifestations Slavery · Racial profiling · Lynching Hate speech · Hate crime · Hate groups Genocide · The Holocaust · Armenian Genocide · Pogrom Ethnocide · Ethnic cleansing · Race war Religious persecution · Gay bashing Blood libel · Black Legend Pedophobia · Ephebiphobia Movements Discriminatory Aryanism · Neo-Nazism · Ku Klux Klan National Party (South Africa) American Nazi Party Kahanism · Supremacism Anti... Sectarianism refers (usually pejoratively) to a rigid adherence to a particular sect or party or religious denomination. ...

In Autumn 2003 the Socialist Party were all over the Irish media, as both Joe Higgins and Clare Daly had been sent to Mountjoy Prison for a month for refusing to abide by a High Court injunction relating to the blockading of bin lorries. This was part of the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign. Other members (along with people from other parties, and non-aligned activists) also went to prison for varying amounts of time for similar reasons. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ... Clare Daly is an Irish socialist politician and trade union activist. ... Mountjoy Prison is a closed medium security prison located in Dublin, Ireland. ... The High Court (Irish: An Ard-Chúirt) of the Republic of Ireland is a court which deals at first instance with the most serious and important civil and criminal cases, and also acts as a court of appeal for civil cases in the Circuit Court. ... Look up Injunction in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Anti-Bin Tax campaign was established to oppose the introduction of bin charges by local authorities in Ireland. ...

In 2005 the Socialist Party and in particular Joe Higgins TD and Cllr. Mick Murphy were instrumental in exposing the exploitation of immigrant Turkish construction workers working for the Turkish multinational GAMA on Irish state projects. Workers were being paid as little as 2.20 euros an hour (less than half the minimum wage in Ireland) while being forced to work up to 80 hours per week. The Socialist Party's intervention led to the first major strike by immigrant workers in Ireland. The Party then discovered millions of euro hidden in Dutch bank accounts in the workers names. The strike ended in complete victory with the workers winning tens of thousand of euros each in unpaid wages and overtime. It proved to be a major coup for the party with huge press coverage over months, while embarrassing the official trade union movement, SIPTU, of which the GAMA workers were members. Joe Higgins (born 1 May 1949) was the Socialist Partys sole TD (member of the Irish Dáil Éireann), representing Dublin West. ... Mick Murphy is an Irish socialist elected representative. ... GAMA Endustri is a multi-national Turkish construction firm. ... The minimum wage is the minimum rate a worker can legally be paid (usually per hour) as opposed to wages that are determined by the forces of supply and demand in a free market. ... SIPTU (Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union) is Irelands largest trade union, with over 200,000 members according to its website. ...

Youth Wing

Socialist Youth is the youth wing of the Socialist Party, with branches in most of the cities and towns where the Socialist Party is organised. One of its members was also imprisoned as a result of the events around the anti-bin charge campaign. Socialist Youth is the youth campaign of the Socialist Party of Ireland. ...

Some members of Socialist Youth have been supportive of the Shell to Sea campaign. In mid 2006, Socialist Youth launched a young workers' rights campaign called Organise! which has organised assistance for young workers who face exploitative treatment by their employers. In the North, the campaign goes under the name Fightback! and has placed pickets and protests on low-paying employers. Shell To Sea is a campaign based in County Mayo, Ireland against the construction by Shell of a high pressure gas pipeline and a refinery at Bellanaboy which would process the gas from the Corrib Gas Field. ...

Key policies

Both Socialist Youth and the Socialist Party itself have as key policies the taking of economic power out of the hands of the bankers, speculators and wealthy industrialists. Instead they want to transfer that power to working class people. The Socialist Party stands for public ownership and democratic socialist planning of the key areas of economic activity.

In relation to Northern Ireland, the Socialist Party advocate a radical alternative to the status-quo. They wish to transcend borders and bring working class unity on this island. They argue a capitalist united Ireland would mean continuence of capitalist exploitation of the working class and that capitalism is incapable of overcoming sectarianism. The socialist Ireland that they propose would be a voluntary part of an international socialist federation.

Not to be confused with the Irish Republican Socialist Party or the Socialist Workers Party. Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) describes itself as a republican socialist party and claims to be both Marxist-Leninist and republican. ... The Socialist Workers Party (Ireland) (SWP) is an Irish, Trotskyist political party. ...

External links

Audio

• The History and Politics of the Socialist Party - Interview with Socialist Party Councillor Mick Murphy on Dublin City Anna Livia FM (Dublin)

Dublin City Anna Livia is a special interest, arts and Cultural radio station in Dublin, Ireland licensed by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. ...

Websites

• Socialist Party - Website
• Socialist Party Belfast - Website
• Socialist Party Limerick - Website
• Socialist Youth - Youth section website
• The Socialist - Newspaper of the Socialist Party
• Socialist View - Political journal of the Socialist Party
• International Socialist Voice - Socialist Party E-zine
• The Socialist Party's political manifesto
• Committee for a Workers' International - To which the Socialist Party is affiliated

See also

• Category:Irish Socialist Party politicians