Paul Murphy demands 100% pay, wealth levies and Green New Deal

Everything possible has to be done to allow workers to effectively social distance. We need to make sure that workers don't have a situation where they're laid off in this crisis, not to be taken on again in the future, or to be taken on again in the future on lower rates and conditions and worse conditions. We need to ensure that all workers are guaranteed a continuation of their job and employment rights, and that all workers who are affected by the coronavirus and who cannot go to work or should not go to work for any variety of reasons, because they're self-isolating, because they're minding children, because they're looking after vulnerable people, because their work obviously isn't continuing, as should be the case for all non-essential work, that they are all guaranteed 100% of their income. Workers' lives are built not around 70% of their income, but around 100% of their income, so while 70% is a definite improvement on what we were facing before, it isn't enough, unless you have a situation where rents are frozen, as in, don't have to be paid for the period of the crisis. Then workers need to get 100% of their wages, and we have an amendment to do that. That should be paid for, particularly by big businesses, by the businesses themselves, from profits that have accumulated, unless on the basis of proven need, and this will be the case for many small businesses, that they simply can't do that. I want to make a broader point, which relates to a point that the Taoiseach made on St Patrick's Day, which I thought was significant. He said the bill for dealing with the coronavirus crisis will be enormous, and it may take years to pay it. And I think the question of who's going to pay for that bill is going to be a central question in this country and around the world for the coming years. As the crisis deepens and the months go by, are we going to see massive bailouts for the airline industry, for banking system, for the hotel industry? Are those bailouts going to be paid for by workers over the next number of years? Or will we see a bailout for workers starting now, guaranteeing 100% of income, that's good not just for the workers and their families, but for society and the real economy, where you don't have a downward spiral in terms of demand? The bottom line, in my opinion, is that workers must not pay the price, now or in the future. And there's very simple things that can be done now by the government to raise the revenue to deal with this crisis, rather than placing it onto the shoulders of workers in the future. Number one, the government must immediately drop its case for Apple to keep the €14.3 billion that is now sitting in an escrow account. We need that money now for tackling the crisis. Secondly, we need an emergency substantial levy on the wealth of millionaires and billionaires in this country. A 5% levy would raise €8 billion. Thirdly, we need an emergency levy on the reserves of the insurance industry, who have disgracefully been seeking to avoid paying out for this crisis, when it's precisely moments like this that small businesses have paid insurance for. People will tell us that dropping the Apple tax case or these levies are not possible. The problem is that the same people who told us that a one-tier health system was impossible, that banning evictions was impossible or that freezing rents was unconstitutional. When faced with the enormity of this crisis and public pressure to do what's necessary, many of the sacred cows of neoliberalism have been sacrificed in Ireland and around the world. The Minister for Finance has said we will never be returning to the old normal. I agree. People will see that if it's possible to ban evictions, to take private hospital beds into the public system, to pay workers substantially more than the dole, now in a time of crisis, then it should be possible at other times. We face a crisis right now in terms of COVID-19, but we all know that working people, the very people on the front line of facing this crisis, face crises every single day of rent, of cost of living, of healthcare. So these reports should be made permanent, and we will be fighting to make that happen. But we will also be demanding that we go further. The government is thankfully largely attempting to do what the science around coronavirus demands. But for decades, scientific experts have also been warning about the existential threat of climate change, to take far-reaching radical measures now to save lives. And just like with the coronavirus, the free market capitalist system, production for profit, is the barrier. It's at the root of these problems. All the talk of putting capitalism to rest, like a sleeping beauty to be reawoken at some future date by an economist prince, is ignoring the reality. Things won't be the same after the crisis, and people will fight for the most radical and far-reaching change possible. We need a set of policies that restructure society and the economy, to focus on the needs of people and our environment, not the desires of billionaires and the super-wealthy. A green new deal with socialist policies, to deal with the economic fallout from this crisis, and to prevent the climate crisis. A jobs programme, public ownership, democratic control and planning.