Workers' Party of Ireland

The Workers' Party of Ireland
Party leader	Michael Donnelly
founding	1970 (as The Workers' Party 1982)
Headquarters	24a / 25 Hill Street, Dublin 1
Alignment	Communism marxism
Colours)	Red Green
Local government in Ireland	1/949
International connections	International meeting of communist and workers' parties
European party	Initiative of communist and workers' parties in Europe
Website	www.workersparty.ie

The Workers' Party of Ireland ( Irish : Páirtí na nOibrithe ) is a Marxist party in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland .

Emergence

The origins of the party lie in the Republican movement of Ireland and can be traced back to the split in the IRA in 1969. At that time the civil rights movement was developing in Northern Ireland, which demanded equal treatment for Catholic residents of Ulster . Those forces within the IRA that were Marxist-oriented and who tried to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict through political means established the Official Irish Republican Army , and parallel to it the Official Sinn Féin party. After several renaming, the Workers' Party of Ireland emerged . The more nationalist and violent wing of the movement founded the Provisional Irish Republican Army .

Entry into parliament

In the 1980s, the Workers' Party managed to win favor with voters from less privileged classes in Ireland, particularly in the Dublin area. This was due to the high unemployment rate in those years, high taxes and inadequate public services. This is how the party managed to steal votes from the Irish Labor Party . The height of political influence was in 1989; in the general election , the Workers' Party won seven seats in the Dáil Éireann .

Division and loss of influence

Although the Official IRA had already declared a ceasefire in the 1970s, it was still present as an underground movement, and many of its members were active in the Workers' Party. The allegations that the OIRA had raised funds through bank robberies and organized crime became a growing burden for the party. At the 1999 party congress, the party leadership tried to change its statutes so that members of the OIRA could be excluded. The vote failed and with it the change of direction. As a consequence, almost all leaders left the party and founded the Democratic Left , including Pat Rabbitte , who would later become chairman of the Irish Labor Party. The remaining members of the party could no longer follow up on the previous successes in the elections. In 2004, the party became controversial when its chairman Seán Garland was accused of circulating counterfeit US dollar bills (known as superdollars ) in North Korea . Since then, the party has long fought against attempts by the American authorities to extradite Garland to the United States.

Web links

• Current official website (English)
• Campaign to Stop the extradition of Seán Garland to the United States (English)