Éirígí Activists Bring 'Power To The People' Campaign To The Gates Of Leinster House
The ‘Power To The People’ campaign was brought to the gates of Leinster House today, with Éirígí activists holding a variety of posters calling for an end to the giveaway of Ireland’s vast renewable energy resources. The action came exactly three years after the launch of the Power To The People campaign in October 2019. Speaking from outside Leinster House, Cathaoirleach Éirígí, Brian Leeson, said,
“Three years ago we launched the Power To The People campaign to oppose the government’s policy of handing control of Ireland’s renewable energy sector to the Big Energy corporations. In doing so we asserted that Ireland could only achieve energy security through the public ownership of the country’s energy resources and energy infrastructure.
Three years, one pandemic and one major European war later, we have been proved right. The political establishment’s fanatical belief in the Big Energy corporations and the international energy markets have left us in the situation we are in today, with Irish energy prices now at the highest level on record.
Éirígí activists at the gates of Leinster House. Brining Ireland’s energy resources into public ownership is the only route that can deliver both energy security and a low carbon economy.
It is now more widely understood than it was in 2019 that the latest advances in renewable energy technology could allow Ireland to reach a very high level of energy independence. And that they could allow Ireland to become a net exporter of electricity.
That is the vision at the heart of the Power To The People campaign - a publicly-owned, low carbon energy system that provides secure, low cost energy to Irish homes and Irish businesses. This vision is the direct opposite of the insecurity and high prices what the political establishment is delivering with their reliance on Big Energy and the international energy markets.
Neither the government or the so-called opposition are even talking about the sort of steps that need to be taken to deliver long-term, secure and affordable energy for the people of Ireland.
Éirígí has been campaigning for the public ownership of Ireland’s energy resources since the battle for the Corrib Natural Gas Field in 2006. Few, if any, other political party can match Éirígí’s political consistency and activist track record on the energy issue.
Instead they are squabbling over how which mechanism should be used to hand billions of euros of public money to Big Energy, with the government doing it through the Fuel Allowance and Electricity Credit schemes and Sinn Féin proposing to do it through a new price cap scheme.
The demand for a publicly-owned, low carbon energy system will not come from the top down through the establishment political parties in Leinster House. Instead it will have to built from the bottom up in communities across the country and through the building of new political forces like Éirígí.
I’d strongly encourage people to read up on the Power To The People campaign and if they like what they read to join Éirigí and the fight for energy justice and a New Republic.”