Friends and comrades, once more we gather to pay homage to Seamus Costello, republican, socialist, revolutionary. Seamus in life was a giant of a man politically. He stood out among his contemporaries for his belief, energy, ideas, and charisma. In death he stands out for us as an icon, a hero to emulate and a leader to mourn. As founder member of the IRSP and the INLA he played his part in ensuring that the authentic ideas of republican socialism would endure. The ideas of Connolly and Mellows, the radical tradition of the Republican Congress, and the more progressive ideas of the Republican Movement were all encapsulated in the person of Seamus Costello.

But in paying tribute to Seamus we do not make the mistake of mindless hero-worshipping. Irish republicanism has played a progressive role in Irish society because of its ability to renew itself in each generation and become relevant to the lives of the people from which it had sprung. Seamus Costello was a catalyst in renewing the republican tradition in the latter part of the 20th century. Seamus played a major part in convincing many in the mainstream Republican Movement that the time for clichés, flags, and faded memories of old men was long past.

He pointed the way by standing for elections, taking his seat, playing a full part in the community he came from while never forgetting the national question and the crime of partition. Seamus saw a role for an army of the people prepared to both defend the interests of the working class whilst also prepared to challenge imperialism and its hold over the whole of Irish society.

That is what we must learn from the leadership of Seamus: the ability to adapt, to renew, and to avoid becoming stuck in the old ways. After all the world he lived in has all but disappeared. The Soviet bloc no longer exists, there is only one super-power, the Officials have become irrelevant while the Provos of the seventies are but a distant memory and dreams of the year of victory have become replaced with that 'radical' revolutionary cry: implement the Good Friday Agreement!

Those who claimed to have smashed the old Stormont now want to rebuild it and look forward to working in a coaliation with the party of Paisley. So much for the strategy of fragmenting unionism.

I wonder what Seamus would have made of it all?

Internally he would have been disappointed at the way his movement lost its way in the aftermath of his death, particularly in the eighties and early nineties. Since 1995 we have painfully examined our past failures, held our hands up to past mistakes, and have taken this movement back to the ideals, ideas, and beliefs that first motivated Seamus and his fellow comrades to set up this movement. We have tried to instil confidence, self-respect, loyalty to the movement, and a fundamental belief in the primacy of politics. These attributes go to the very heart of our ideology. Confidence in the class, self-respect for our values of socialism, loyalty to our own movement but not uncritical loyalty, and of course the primacy of politics.

But Seamus would not have been satisfied with just that. There is so much more to be done. A huge emphasis must be placed by the incoming leadership of this movement on political education, on activity, on discipline, on democracy, and on being revolutionary agitators.

The days of the loud mouth in the pub are gone. The days of using this movement as a flag of convenience for personal gain are gone. The days of bullying working class youth are gone. The days of policing working class communities are gone.

Those things were never on the agenda of the Republican Socialist Movement but unfortunately some scum floated towards the top of this movement in the past aided by the British. Their day is done.

Republican socialists must be servants not masters of the working class. That's what we are about: taking the message of liberation, of class struggle, of republicanism to the vast majority of people on this island.

Externally I have no doubt that Seamus would have continued to be anti-imperialist and socialist and republican. Seamus had beliefs. Not interests.

Seamus's advocacy of the broad front was premised on the belief that the coming together of radical and progressive forces was in the interests of the Irish working class. Not for him or any republican that adhered to Connolly socialism a reactionary alliance with the most conservative forces in Irish Society. For how else can you categorise the pan-nationalist front of Sinn Fein (Provisional), the SDLP, and the coaliation of Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats: an alliance with the every people who demonised republicans, who split with gold the Republican Movement, who supported the most repressive laws against republicans, who framed our comrades over the Sallins affair, and persistently and consistently demonise this movement?

What republican in the tradition of Tone can accept an agreement that reduces the anti-imperialist conflict of over two centuries to a sordid little sectarian war between two "communities", for by signing the GFA the signatories accepted the internal conflict argument that British imperialism had been promoting for years: that the conflict in Ireland was religious. The Good Friday Agreement has led to increased sectarianism as the working classes are pressured into identifying with the two sectarian blocs. Partition has been solidified.

We reject the notion that there are two separate divided communities. Republican socialists reject the two community approach. There is one community and a divided working class and while elements of that self same working class clash those who benefit from the divisions of the working class pocket their profits and come July jet off to quieter and sunnier climates.

Was that what the conflict was about? That is no victory, nor indeed an honourable draw. That was a crushing defeat for the progressive forces in Ireland. Was it for this that men and women sacrificed the best years of their lives in struggle, in prison, in exile, and in death?

Is it not time to call a halt to the endless round of talks about talks about talks especially when the two main groups can not even meet in the same room?

What kind of government can work when the leading partners don't even talk to each other? And in relation to parliamentarism Seamus had it right when he said, "Before the Republican Movement can achieve power, we must succeed in breaking the confidence of the people in the existing parliamentary institutions, and I would suggest that this should be one of the main functions of our TDs. They should also be full time revolutionary organisers in their own areas, thereby demonstrating to the people who elected them the fundamental difference between ourselves and the other parties."

Don't misunderstand what we are saying. The IRSP with the full support of the INLA are in favour of dialogue. We emphatically re-state that armed struggle is not the way forward today. That road may lead somewhere but most assuredly not to the Republic. Yes, dialogue is possible, but not with those who think we are lesser human beings. Why should republicans seek to be talked to by right wing bigots of the DUP? They don't represent the real interests of any section of the working class. Let's reach out to the working class on the basis of principled political positions not for temporary expediency.

Seamus Costello, a man before his time, pointed the way forward, and I quote, "We maintain that any co-operation with the Protestant working class must be on the basis of a principled political position. It must be on the basis of explaining fully to the Protestant working class what all our policies are. We must try and politicise them, simultaneously with conducting a political campaign to get rid of Britain."

There is no permanent solution possible that envisages the continued existence of the sectarian six county state. Those who pretend otherwise fool not only others but themselves.

Unless and until the six county state is either totally abolished or totally transformed, sectarianism will dominate politics here and the imperialists can continue to present our conflict as a religious struggle.

Well, my friends, it is not. It is a political conflict against the imperialist imposition of foreign rule on any part of this island.

Similarly the conflict in Iraq is not about fundamentalist Muslim terrorism but about the imperialist exploitation of the resources of Iraq. Those who are against that war should have a simple clearly understood slogan for the British and US invaders: "Out of Iraq, Out of Ireland." Any other position ignores the reality of the naked brutal power of imperialism and lets them of the hook.

To those on the left who merely raise the slogan "Stop the War," catch yourselves on. It is only by a consistent and principled opposition to all forms of imperialism that wars can be ended. The bounden duty of the left is not to patronise liberal opinion with platitudes but to stand by the anti-imperialist fighters and extend critical support to progressive anti-imperialist fighters. And it that offends the liberal classes, well, tough.

Nobody, especially not an administration of Brits, whose hands are covered with the blood of thousands of innocent Iraqis, has the right to call republicans, who oppose their claim to rule this island, criminals. We are not and we never have been terrorists. Seamus Costello was a freedom fighter, patriot, anti-imperialist, and socialist.

So it is only right to express our full solidarity with current republican political prisoners in Maghaberry and reiterate our call for the immediate release of Dessie O'Hare and the other qualifying republican prisoners arising from the Belfast Agreement. We make no distinction between different republican groupings when it comes to solidarity with republican prisoners. Do not forget there would be no republican prisoners in jails if there was a final settlement to the national question. And so long as the national question is unsettled then so will there be republicans who will wage a struggle to establish a Republic on the island for all the people of the island.

But, comrades, while we right emphasise the so-called bigger picture of the political dispensation we must never forget the day to day struggles of working people. We need to take the ideals of socialism out of the realms of discussion and manifestos and elections and make them directly relevant to our underprivileged communities. Poor health, low wages, substandard housing, class-based education services, crime, and anti-social behaviour are neither republican nor loyalist, Catholic or Protestant, North or South, six or 26 county issues. They are class issues and affect us all. We need to arouse in our class the spirit of fraternity. That's the way to take on the symptoms of neo-liberal capitalism: sectarianism, racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-social behaviour, alienation, poverty, drug abuse, and self-destruction. A real movement built on the values of fraternity, solidarity, cooperation, and democracy will crumble away these barriers to freedom in Ireland.

Our movement to be relevant must update its republican socialism. Too close a concentration on the national question and an unquestioning approach to the nature of imperialism in Ireland has distorted and held back the struggle for socialism in Ireland and also incidentally is the antithesis of the approach that Seamus would have taken.

From this platform today, may I appeal to all those progressive republicans, republican socialists, or Connolly socialists to do as Seamus did, get involved in the day-to-day activities of the class.

It's fine and useful to reminisce about the past, to write the histories, to tell the tales of past heroic deeds, but, comrades, it does not challenge the future.

These are glorious days to be alive and see the stirrings of class struggle in the world. There is a growing anti-imperialism worldwide: in Iraq, Nepal, the Phillippines, Pakistan, India, Venezuela, Bolivia, and the former Stalinist states, the working class is moving into battle. Now ask how you can aid this struggle. Everyone has something to contribute no matter how small. Participate in your union branch, join or set up a community group in your area to organise people, protest, agitate, organise. Remember, to beat the system, you do need comrades. From this platform we appeal to all genuine republican socialists.

Look around at the world we actually live in and I defy you not to be angry at the injustice and inequality and not have the wish to change things. There are enough resources in our world to feed and clothe everyone. Yet every day thousands die from disease, famine, and hunger. Why? Because of capitalism.

We have called in the past for the convening of a Republican Forum where republicans and socialists of all hues can dialogue together to map out a way forward for the future. That's in the tradition of Seamus Costello's call for a broad front and building anti-imperialist unity. But we recognise that many on the left think they can go it alone and don't need to relate to any section of the republican left.

It will be part of our task to persuade not only the left but the working class, by the things we do, by the actions we take, by the examples we set, by the calibre of the comrades we attract to our banner of the Starry Plough, that there is merit in working together.

For, comrades, many people still harbour illusions that Sinn Fein in government North and South can make a difference to the social and economic conditions in this country. They can not. They will not. At best they may put a more human face on capitalism but it will still be capitalism and that's a system that exploits, brutalises, and also is destroying the world. It itself needs to be destroyed, not reformed.

Let us follow that example of Seamus Costello. Stand with the marginalised, the downtrodden, the victims, the poor, and all who are voiceless in the modern Ireland. Strive for equality, solidarity, working class unity, human rights, and justice for all. Let us daily work towards the socialist republic. In the end that's the only fitting memorial to all our dead comrades, Seamus included.

Comrades, there is much work to be done. Let's do it.

Thank you.

STATEMENTS ENDS