Speaking at a Press Conference at the Party’s head office Michael Finnegan, President of the Workers Party stated that he was delighted to have the honour to launch not only one, but two new publications under the imprint of Citizen Press.

“For the last 18 months the government, the banks, the speculators, and the capitalist system generally have been furiously rewriting the story of the financial and economic meltdown of 2008. They are pushing a narrative which deflects blame away from the real culprits – the robber barons of capitalism – and placing it, and therefore the responsibility of paying for the recovery, at the feet of the working class. Right across the capitalist system the banks are being bailed out, the speculators are being rehabilitated and the workers and unemployed are being screwed".

“The Left has not been able to counter this barrage of propaganda and political assault and has often been slow in producing its own analysis and proposals. I believe that the address at the Workers’ Party Bodenstown Commemoration last year by Mary Diskin offers an incisive analysis of both the local and global situation. It sets out very clearly the mountain we on the Left have to climb and once again reiterates our plea for greater cooperation by all genuine Left parties and organisations. It is a timely addition to our bookshelves".

“Our second publication tonight deals with a very different subject and a very different era. This pamphlet is the second produced by the re-established Research Section of The Workers’ Party.  Part of a larger project that will produce more detailed material, it uses oral testimony from those involved, primary research, and draws on histories of the period, to provide an analysis of the pivotal 1969/70 period in the consolidation of the socialist agenda by the  Republican Movement".

“The pamphlet describes the origins of the tensions within Republicanism that came to a head in the period after August 1969.  It outlines the attempts of Fianna Fáil to reverse the advance of progressive politics not just within the Republican Movement, but also within the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and the broader civil rights movement", said Michael Finnegan. 

“It describes Fianna Fáil’s two-part plan for ending the threat posed by the Republican Movement.  This study culminates in an analysis of the events and decisions of the Ard Fheis of January 1970. Our comrade Tomás Mac Giolla was a central and towering figure in these events. It is a great pity that he passed away before this pamphlet was published.”