There are many ways to judge the health of a society. The speculators in the European Bond Markets judge the health of nations by the state of their public finances; socialists and trade unionists point to the way that old people and children are treated and especially the position of women in society. Economists look at the volume of imports and exports and at the rate of economic growth.  One measure looks at the scale of inequality within society.

While between 2 and 3 million struck in Britain, in the North of Ireland about 200,000 people took part in the Public Sector  strike action on 30^th November. Schools and civil service offices were shut, as were job centres and council services. Rail and bus services were non-existent. Union members held marches, pickets, and rallies throughout the country over the issue of pensions. The main rally took place in Belfast city centre, where around 15,000 gathered and several thousands spread over Craigavon, Omagh, Armagh, Ballymena, Derry and other towns.

Last Thursday’s by election in Dublin West came down to a three horse race between Councillor Patrick Nulty of Labour who won and Councillor Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party who came third, while Fianna Fáil (FF) squeezed into second place after a tie for second and third place – on the basis that they had more first preference votes.

The Greek working class has moved decisively into action. The last few days in Greece have demonstrated that faced with an approaching economic calamity the workers are prepared to fight to defend their living standards and their jobs also. However, the bankers and the various competing European powers have no option but to fight for their own interests and will fight to the last gasp. The scene is set for further conflict in the euro zone between the increasingly divergent interests of the European states and between the classes in each of the European countries.

 The decision of the Secretary Of State to revoke Marian Price’s release from prison has been met with widespread opposition from the Republican movement. The justification given was that the threat that she poses has “significantly increased” and that she had been encouraging support for an illegal organisation based on her involvement in an Easter comm

The Nama Wine Lake Blog recently exposed the scandalous statistic that while there are some 300,000 vacant houses in the state, there are still some 100,000 households on the list for state housing. Nama Wine Lake estimates that this represents a minimum of 176,147 people. Even a very conservative estimate of the “overhang” of vacant properties – excluding holiday homes indicates that there are some 100,000 vacant homes - 23 -33,000 of which are on the so called “ghost estates”.