For the Irish Republican Socialist Movement, the INLA cease-fire (begun August 22, 1998)‹as with the armed struggle itself‹was purely a tactical question. In saying that, we mean that neither our objectives nor our determination to fight for them has been altered. The Irish Republican Socialist Movement has long stated that we do not believe there is a guerilla road to the socialist republic, and neither is there a parliamentary road to socialism. The class struggle must be a struggle by the masses of the working class in its own interests. This has not changed.

What has changed in relation to the class war is that the end of armed struggle improves many opportunities to engage in activities to raise the class-consciousness of Irish workers. For those of us so long engaged in armed struggle and association with an illegal paramilitary wing, this will require some period of adjustment to find our footing, but we have long held the position that the political battles have primacy over the campaign as a whole.

Question 2: From the politics of British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Socialdemocratic Party we see that those lost their left wing. They are part of an international campaign of globalisation and liberalisation of economics. Minor parties from the left are going to fill the socialdemokratic hole. Has the discussion about what socialistic politics mean changed the attitudes of your party's politics?

Irish Republican Socialist Party remains committed to a revolutionary socialist platform and perspective. We have no interest playing at the administration of the Capitalist State in a bourgeois parliament. We remain committed to the revolutionary transformation of society, not the reformism of traditional social democrats, nor of the left wing parties attempting to take their place.

There has been a great deal of demoralisation experienced within the Left, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. We in the Irish Republican Socialist Party feel, however, that the problems of the working class under capitalism remain unsolved, and remain ever mindful of Rosa Luxemburg¹s position that only two choices ultimately exist: the attainment of socialism or the continued decline into barbarism.

The great Irish Marxist James Connolly was fond of saying to those who counseled "moderation" that it is the working class who have created all the wealth, all the technology, all the productive capacities of society at present, and there is nothing extreme in demanding that the working class should possess all these things in full. We too see our demand for a 32-County Irish Socialist Republic to be quite moderate enough. The vast majority of Ireland¹s populace are working class people, surely any system operating with the concerns as the primary focus of the system can be called nothing other than democracy, extended to the social and economic spheres.

We are not naïve, however. We do not expect those who wield economic and political power to suddenly be filled with either boundless generosity or unlimited respect for the will of the people when it comes to the question of who should own the wealth of society. For that reason, we do not put our faith in the institutions of bourgeois democracy and the rule of bourgeois law. We understand that the class war will be just that, a war, and we would do a disservice to our class were we to encourage them to believe that a renewed social democracy could hope to deliver to them what they rightfully deserve.

Question 3: Many have the view that beside the struggle for unity a worker who is loyalist should be nearer to an republican worker than to a loyalist managing director. Was there ever something like internationalism across the border?

Before the border even existed there was such unity. The most notable example being in the 1798 United Irishmen rising, from which all Irish republicanism traces its roots. The movement which rose against British colonialism at that time had a majority of its leadership drawn from the ranks of Irish Protestants from the settler community. The 1848 Young Ireland rising retained a large proportion of its leadership from this strata of Irish society.

In more recent times, in the Belfast dock strike in the early years of this century and again amongst the unemployed workers in 1932 we saw significant instances of the working class of both these communities joining together for shared class objectives.

The border, however, is precisely the thing that has caused the Irish working class to remain divided and it is for that reason that we, like Connolly before us, has always held that the fight for national liberation and the class struggle in Ireland could not be separated. The continuation of the border has promoted the continued influence of sectarianism‹which in turn causes the workers from the Protestant community, that is the settler community, to remained tied to the bourgeois leaders of their community, and far too often for the same to be true of those drawn from the Catholic, or native, community.

It is the reason that the Loyalist working class parties, when attempting to formulate class-based politics run headlong into the contradiction of also supporting the British monarchy and the feudal and capitalist institutions of the British State. Ultimately it has tended to render such initiatives closer to National Socialism than true socialism. This is borne out by the close ties between the Loyalist paramilitaries and neo-fascist groups around the globe.

It is in an attempt to overcome this tendency that the Irish Republican Socialist Party recently stated its preparedness to acknowledge that communities self-identification as the "British working class in Ireland", signaling our willingness to accept their distinct cultural icons.

More importantly, it was with this in mind that the IRSP recently made a proposal for Non-Aggression Pact charters in an attempt to provide the working class of both communities in Ireland to create a peace for themselves, without the intercession of the imperialist States of Britain and the U.S. or the partitionist statelet that is the Dublin government being involved. (See attached documents).

Question 4: Ireland itself had had a booming economic in the 80th and 90th. It looks like the boom is gone. Were there significant chances in income and social care for the people in Ireland?

At the height of the so-called ŒCeltic Tiger¹, the number of Irish people living at or below the poverty level was over 30%. As soon as it seemed that the Irish working class was going to be able to lay claim to some of the wealth that was being raved about, inflation began to climb, an army of bourgeois economists stepped forward to claim what a negative impact increased wages would bring, and some major employers began to pull out.

The Irish economic boon is a reality, but it has benefited the people of Ireland in an extremely uneven fashion. The disparity between the rich and the poor has grown exponentially in the past five years. Housing prices have gone far beyond the means of the average working person in Dublin. And, despite long selling the working class of Ireland as among the best educated in the world, the unemployed of Ireland are now hearing that it is necessary to import foreign skilled workers, because there are far too few Irish workers with the skills necessary to take the jobs the economic boon had created.

Foreign corporations remain the chief beneficiaries of the economic growth, complete with the long standing problem of Dublin-subsidizing their infrastructure, granting tax holidays on their profits, seeing profits repatriated to the corporate nation of origin, insufficient development of sustainable integrated industries, and the disruption of traditional culture where industries have established themselves, and aggressive combat against the trade union movement. Ireland was a convenient portal into the European Union, with the third or fourth lowest wages in the EU, a largely English-speaking, relatively well-educated workforce. When other, less expensive portals become available, such as Hungary or the Czech Republic, the ŒCeltic Tiger¹ will swiftly wither to what it had become in the early 1980s‹a broken economy of super exploitation.

In addition to the problems just described, we have the additional issues of these corporations coming in and befouling the environment, such as Fruit of the Loom did to Loch Foyle. But they provided a huge number of jobs in what had been a seriously depressed area, so know one protested, no one even asked many questions, because they were afraid the jobs would go. And then, right in the midst of this fiasco, Fruit of the Loom closed part of its operation and laid off hundreds of workers.

As to how the boon aided in social care, the answer is, it barely did at all.

What it should have done, and really did not do‹which demonstrates the irrational nature of Loyalist politics‹is to mute the resistance of the Unionist bourgeoisie to reintegration of the occupied six counties into the full nation of Ireland. For the first time, I believe ever, wages in the south of Ireland surpassed those of the six counties, total unemployment eased up in the 26 counties to surpass the health of the six county economy in that regard. In short, the traditional Unionist argument that they do not want to integrate with the 26 counties, because their investments would s suffer, as would the dole payments of unemployed workers. Those arguments now longer support current reality

Question 5: Those parts of Northern Ireland where Republicans lived were poorer than the others. Have there being changes together with the peace process?

It is far too early yet to have seen significant progress in the living conditions associated with the nationalist communities of the six counties. Beyond this, your question is mistaken. Some of the worst housing in the six counties is in the six counties is in the Shankill Road, and some of the worst in all Ireland is in North Dublin.

Will some minor reforms trickle through the Irish economy? Quite probably. Will they fundamentally change the opportunities for the masses of Irish working people? No, and they will be gone as soon as the next opportunity comes. At present, net immigration exceeds net emigration‹for the first time in over 150 years. That is a significant accomplishment, but whether it can be maintained remains to be seen.

Question 6: Some, not to say many, of your comrades are still in prison. Do you expect to British to stand to their word to open the gates for those prisoners?

So far the British have shown ever intention of honouring the early prisoner releases, but we will have the opportunity to judge for ourselves very, very soon. While we have approximately 17 Republican Socialist Prisoners of War still incarcerated, all but about 4 or 5 are due to be released by July 28th. I hasten to add, however, that unlike the Provisional IRA¹s prisoners, must of our POWs served their entire sentence,

There is a further concern. We have, for example, three prisoners of war in Maghaberry. There they lack the facilities and organisational integrity, which could be maintained in Long Kesh. Beyond that, Maghaberry is not segregated‹that is, republicans and loyalist prisoners are kept in the same wings. The potential for assault is vast and were any sizable prison population to remain, this would be a serious concern.

For the most part, however, the Irish Republican Socialist Movement has shifted its focus from supporting our incarcerated POWs and their families, to taking steps necessary to assist former POWs with integrating back into their communities, their class, the workplace, and active political life. Towards this end, the IRSP pioneered a concept now being widely copied. In our case it is called Teach na Failte ('House of Welcome') and is an all-Ireland organisation designed to supply training, counselling, and mutual support to released prisoners of war to enable them to gain employment, self-esteem, and comfort once they return to their communities.