Covid-19 - Who is going to Pay?
by Nicole McCarthy
There are going to be huge economic effects stemming from the pandemic. Leo Varadkar on St Patrick’s Day said “the bill will be enormous and it may take years to pay it” and the Minister for Finance said that we will never be returning to the ‘old normal’. Those of us who have suffered the austerity measures brought in by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail after the 2008 crash know that statements like this are preparing the general public for another big business bailout. They intend to make workers pay.
Wealth is created by the labour of millions of workers, so why should the wealthy corporations be bailed out while those who created the wealth are made to pay for the revival of their private profits? Workers already face crises in everyday life: rent increases, rising cost of living, cost of health care and lack of resources meaning huge waiting lists for medical procedures. They are now keeping themselves safe from the coronavirus while dealing with unemployment or threat of eviction. People are struggling to continue to pay rents while the banks have given mortgage breaks to landlords. We should not face the same austerity measures that were imposed on us after the 2008 crash while the government pumped money to save the banks and bondholders.
If the workers don’t pay for it, who should?
Apple Tax: The European Commission ordered Apple to pay the €13 billion plus interest (14.3 billion) unpaid taxes to the Irish state. In 2016 a majority in the Dail voted to support the then Fine Gael government rejecting this tax money, and appealing it to the European Court of Justice. That money now sits in an escrow account. The Irish government needs to drop the court case, seek to access the money and use it for dealing with the health and economic effects of the crisis..
Emergency levy on millionaires: An emergency levy of 5% on the wealth of millionaires in Ireland would raise €8 billion.
Insurance industry reserves emergency levy: The insurance companies have shamefully been telling doctors that their loved ones will not get their insurance pay out if they are to lose their life to Covid-19. They are also seeking to avoid paying out to small businesses for the crisis. Why do people pay insurance if not to be covered in time like this ? The reserve funds held by the insurance industry should be taken into public ownership and made accessible to small businesses struggling to survive and the families struggling due to the loss of a loved one to Covid-19.
Tax Billionaire tax exiles: Irish billionaires, over 30 of whom have declared themselves non-resident for tax purposes, who were in the country when we went into lockdown are being granted special treatment by Revenue! Under normal circumstances, they cannot stay in Ireland for more than 182 days of the year, however as it is in the residency rules ‘extraordinary natural occurrences’ they are permitted further time spent here. Incredibly, this means that they will get to continue to avoid tax in Ireland, despite the fact that they’ll be here for more than 182 days. Instead, we should prevent this tax avoidance altogether.
Those who say these suggestions are not possible to implement are the same critics who said that we would not be able to take private health care facilities into public control creating a one tier health care system or claimed that it was unconstitutional to ban evictions or freeze rents. We are in an unprecedented time, anything is possible.
The steps being taken are insufficient. For example, private health care facilities are only under public control through ‘Public Private Partnerships’, with millions of euros a week going to private health care profiteers for the duration of this crisis. Our money needs to be spent helping those struggling not adding to the already large profits of private companies. This is possible, if we were to take services like health care and huge corporations into democratic, public ownership this would allow us to properly plan and actually meet people's needs.
It is clear from this pandemic and the climate crisis, the capitalist free market is a barrier to the solutions necessary to address the crises. Our economy is based on production for profit of business owners, not the needs of people. RISE agrees with Paschal Donohue that we will not be returning to the ‘old normal’, but we mean something very different! We will be fighting to see radical socialist changes implemented so workers don’t pay the price for the crisis. We need a socialist Green New Deal to tackle the environmental crisis and plan to put people’s needs first.