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'Despite all the challenges, there are reasons we should be hopeful and ambitious in the New Year to bring change' - Cllr Shaun Harkin
'Despite all the challenges, there are reasons we should be hopeful and ambitious in the New Year to bring change' - Cllr Shaun Harkin
Reporter:
Staff Reporter
05 Jan 2026 10:00 AM
Email:
news@derrynow.com
On behalf of People Before profit, Derrry City and Strabane District councillor Shaun Harkin has wished the party's supporters "all those involved in standing up for working-class communities and concerned with opposition to genocide, war, injustice and inequality, the best for the New Year".
He said: "Despite all the challenges, there are reasons we should be hopeful and ambitious in the New Year to bring change. A new political awakening fused with determined resistance is rising in Ireland and across the world.
"For many, the destruction of Gaza is an extreme microcosm of an unjust and corrupt political and social order in Ireland and globally," added Cllr Harkin.
"Catherine Connolly's landslide Presidential victory was an unprecedented blow to Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Ireland's hodgepodge of Tommy Robinson emulators. Self-declared socialist Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City was a stunning defeat for the White House tyrant.
"It demonstrated, just as Connolly's election did, that there is mass support for policies that will redistribute wealth while also taking a principled stand against genocide, against punching down on migrants, on trans people and the vulnerable.
"The alliance of the billionaire right and fascists poses a red alert danger for humanity - but support for socialist politics and policies is on the rise everywhere. The DUP has fully embraced Trump's bile and turned up the volume at every opportunity with divisive sectarian, racist and transphobic rhetoric. DUP leaders are back to promotion of open sectarianism with threats to starve Derry of funding, cynical manipulation of education funding and whipping-up opposition to the Irish Language.
"The rest of Stormont inspires very little confidence either. Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O'Neill demonstrated how out of touch the Stormont Executive is with the claim that Derry is 'thriving'", said Cllr Harkin.
He added: "Derry is great in so many ways but 1 in 4 children live in poverty, low-wages are widespread, more than 6,000 families are trapped on the housing waiting list, and, the city's infrastructure continues to leave people feeling they are second-class citizens.
"The Executive's Anti-Poverty Strategy is nonexistent. The Disability strategy out for consultation has been greeted with dismay. The response to the poisoning of Lough Neagh crisis and our waterways is pathetic. The promises to address the housing, the health service and infrastructure crises are in tatters.
"When it comes to transphobia, almost the entire Assembly has danced to the tune of Trump and the Tories. The Stormont Executive's End Violence Against Women and Girls strategy is content to distribute a pittance to women's and community sector groups and promote the PSNI as an organisation committed to tackling misogyny.
"The British government's role in all of this is reprehensible but Stormont offers nothing that breaks from Westminster's 'billionaire's and big business comes first' approach.
This is why socialists, going back to James Connolly, have made the case that a break from empire must be simultaneously a break with capitalism. Let's pledge to doing all we can to make 2026 a year of transformational change that meets the needs of the vast majority of people."
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