The Workers Party manifesto for the Assembly and Local Governnment elections will be launched next week.
The Party will be focusing on 5 key areas:
1. A new politics for Northern Ireland
2. The Economy
3. Fighting the Stormont Cuts
4. Opposing Sectarianism, and
5. The Environment
The document will be published in full on this page
The Workers Party has suported calls for an all out assault on fuel poverty in Northern Ireland.
Recent figures reveal that 44% of local households cannot afford to heat their homes.
The stark reality is that while insulation and energy efficiency schemes have been helpful, almost one home in two does not have enough income to adequately heat their home.
The Assembly must put tackling fuel poverty at the top of its agenda, take immediate steps to alleviate the burden this winter and commit to the elimination of his wholly unacceptable and unnecessary social outrage, the Party has demanded.
A tax haven on the Lagan?
“Northern Ireland will become a ‘Liechtenstein on the Lagan’ transforming Northern Ireland into a de facto tax haven for big business”, Workers Party has warned.
As Chancellor George Osborne prepares to announce that Northern Ireland will be given responsibility for its own corporation tax the Workers Party has warned that the move will create economic loopholes and exemptions providing a deregulated economic environment through which money can pass with few questions asked.
“The headline rate of corporation tax may or may not change”, the Party said, “but, Northern Ireland will be transformed into a de facto tax-haven”.
“It may well be presented an “enterprise zone”, or something similar, (an approach particularly favoured by Sinn Fein), but there will be little actual enterprise beyond the shifting and hiding of money” siad the Workers Party.
“Although all the parties in the Stormont Coalition seem to view this move as a holy grail, it will do little to bring jobs to Northern Ireland”.
“Have local politicians learned anything from what happened in the Republic of Ireland?” asked Mr Lowry. “The grim reality is that this move has nothing to do with creating jobs and everything to do with making Northern Ireland a tax haven for the rich with all the moral and political baggage that entails”, the statement concluded.
No excuses
“There can be no justifiable argument against the principle of integrated education”, the Workers Party has said.
The debate of the last few days has exposed the entrenched attitudes and vested interests which continue to dominate thinking in Northern Ireland.
Violence may have abated but the mindsets which fuelled it are still active and influential”.
There is no argument whatsoever which can question the validity of educating our children together.
The current debate has scratched the veneer of this society and it has exposed sectarianism, bigotry and the quest by some to hold on to power and influence at any cost, even if that is at the expense of our children and the future of this society, the statement concluded.
Links to a selection of Workers Party videos will appear here shortly.
Workers Party Northern Ireland 