The problem is that there are too many problems. Where does one start? What is the one thing that will finally push the Irish people over the edge? Is it Enda and the boys getting two hundred grand a year? The head of Coillte getting four hundred grand a year for watching trees grow? The banks? The troika? Ghost estates? Promissory notes? The price of a pint in Dublin? College grants? Fees? Waiting on trolley in the corridor of a scabby hospital? TDs’ expenses? Four hundred thousand on the dole? A lost generation of emigrants? A lost generation of unemployed? A generation lost to heroin? What will it take to get us off the stools?

Have you reached breaking point? You are not alone. We are all at breaking point. We despair at the state of things, and we despair at the idea that there is nothing that can be done about it. No channels to express our dissatisfaction with the way of things. Protest? Nah, who’d listen? There is no point. You’ll never get people out on the street. Even if we did get everyone out they wouldn’t listen anyway. But isn’t that just what they want us to think? Have they pacified us? It looks like it from here. When you think about it we haven’t met the biggest challenge to the way our state operates with any resistance. Not even a whimper. When the next generation asks us why we didn’t get off our arses, what are we going to tell them? What are we going to tell ourselves? The best thing to do is work on a cover story, make sure we’re all singing off the same sheet.

We could blame the politicians, yeah we’ll go for that one. Something along the lines of a massive bureaucracy, the media setting the political agenda, the lack of accountability, shady dealings, the Galway races tent, civil war politics and throw the weather in for the craic. Yeah that’s it, we can tell our grandchildren that we left the government put their grandchildren in debt because the politicians were incompetent and it was lashing out. Will they buy it? Would you? Well whatever you do don’t tell them the real reason. Don’t tell them we were too busy watching football or soaps or playing the computer or the best one of them all, whingeing on facebook. This is what we did, all of us. While they handed away control of the country so investment bankers could make massive piles of cash, we were watching tele. Who won the x-factor that year anyway? Does anyone remember or care? No, but at least it kept us entertained for a few weeks, until the next loud shiny thing came on the box.

Wouldn’t it be nicer to tell our grandchildren that when the government tried to cut the number of teachers in their school we said no? Or that when they wanted to close wards in hospitals we stopped them. That we stopped them selling off the forests so they and all that come after them could know them. Shouldn’t we be able to tell them these things when they come of age in a country that can support them, safe in the knowledge that they will not have to cross oceans in search the security and stability that we desire for them? Of course we should. That is why we need to act.

We need to fix this, one thing at a time. If politics has shown us anything in the last couple of years it is that we cannot depend on it. We vote for the politicians based on the promises they give us and once they’re in power they go back on all the promises. Fianna Fáil and the Greens destroyed this country. Fine Gael and Labour decried them for it and promised us they would do things different. They lied. Our country is not safe in their hands, they will not fix anything.

So never mind all the individual problems. The biggest problem we have is the system we use to fix all the problems does not work. That’s the linchpin. That’s why nothing gets fixed. There is no mechanism to apply pressure on the people who have the power to fix the problems. This is what we can change.

We’re not talking about getting involved in politics, contesting elections or playing the media game. That’s the game they play. We are talking about creating our own system. A system that will put pressure on the established one, and make sure they act in the best interests of the people they claim to represent. To do this we will organise outside of all the established channels. We do not need to stress the point that the established channels have been compromised. Every citizen knows the unions are just jobs for the boys. Their top brass are nothing but puppets for the government. The top levels of the civil service are no better, they stall any change worth making, and ensure any programme that is worth implementing is whittled down to nothing by the time it comes about. The political parties are a farce. Their populist rhetoric catches public opinion, whether its’ turf cutters or bondholders. Nothing changes because the politicians are not accountable. We will make them accountable. We will make them accountable by organising. We propose to develop an organisation that will run on a countrywide basis that will apply pressure on all decision making bodies. Through this organisation we can identify the problems in our society and come with solutions. This organisation will enable the Irish people to have an active role in the future of this country. They can ignore one voice, they cannot ignore us all.