Socialist Voice Review
18 August 2026
In the first in a five-part series on the politics of power, The Politics of Power: Part 1 – Rights, Power, and Imperialism, Eoghan O’Neill begins by asking what makes rights and freedoms real. Oh, dear!
He asks us to “Imagine a village where everyone agrees that theft is wrong. A law is passed, the judge condemns every robbery, and the people repeatedly demand justice. Yet the largest gang continues to steal because nobody possesses the strength to stop it. The law still exists, but it affords no protection. In this scenario, the problem is not a shortage of principles or laws; the problem is a lack of power to enforce them.”
For more than a decade, a gang known as the National Executive Committee, not only abused and defied the CPI constitution but continues to stand over each and every infringement.
Has O’Neill missed all this? He should read his own words: “The law still exists, but it affords no protection.” The CPI constitution existed but it offered no protection against abuse and injustice either. Yet, over five parts he wants to lecture us on rights and freedoms. Let’s see how that goes.
China as an alternative
We are strong advocates of individuals and organisations being capable of changing their minds and reviewing their particular situations. Helena Sheehan certainly knows how to change her mind: she left the CPI to join the Irish Labour Party. She championed SYRIZA in Greece while criticising the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) as Stalinist, dogmatic and not sufficiently open to seduction to the guiles of social democrats (SYRIZA). When SYRIZA eventually exposed themselves, she changed her mind about them, but we are not sure if she changed her position on the KKE.
Her latest infatuation it appears, is China – Discovering China. She does ask a lot of questions around the various contradictions that exist in the evolving political and economic development of the country (unlike some previous unquestioning articles on China in Socialist Voice by other contributors) but asking questions is no substitute for answers or objective analysis. Asking questions you have no intention of answering is not much use to anyone. Whether Sheehan ever gets round to answering them is, well, academic. It is the CPI, because of its declared ‘closeness’ to China, that needs to address these questions.
Our question to the CPI is: since when did aligning with an evolving and deeply contradictory social system whose future development and eventual orientation is necessarily unclear, become an acceptable political strategy?
After discussing the “tension between capitalism and socialism” in China, Sheehan ends with the profound notion that “China stands before the world as an alternative path.”
An alternative to capitalism and an alternative to communism? Isn’t that the same thinking as joining the Labour Party and championing SYRIZA?
Why we should be interested in what a philosopher whose ultimate position always appears to revert to ‘anything but communism’ has to say is unclear but why Socialist Voice should subject us to it is an entirely different issue. The CPI is drip-feeding us into accepting its pivot towards China and Sheehan’s article shows that in this mission, any port in a storm will do.
Migration distorted – again
Eoin O’Neill features again in The Anti-Migrant Argument: Deporting the Workers We Depend On. At first glance the article appears to be a reasoned approach to a difficult issue. However, our attention was heightened by a comment that came in to us to the effect that for a communist (she assumed he is a communist), O’Neill is quite sympathetic to the difficulties facing Irish capitalism.
It then becomes clear that while he argues there should be discussion on the issue of migration, he then goes on to decisively control the scope of any such discussion by focusing extensively on the non-issue of mass forced deportations.
Then, having listed quite comprehensively the merits of migrant workers, he completely ignores any migrants/refugees/asylum-seekers who are not employed, who may have entered Ireland illegally and who may be entirely dependent on the state for all their welfare.
Almost as an aside he refers to the reasons for emigration and migration. The Irish emigrated in the past and in the present and “many migrants come to Ireland for the same reasons Irish people have emigrated for generations: to find work, build a future and support their families.” O’Neill, however, does not challenge anybody – least of all the vulgar right – on the real causes for such movements of people. Capitalism and all its horrors gets a free pass, as indeed does the functioning of capitalism in Ireland today as if it were a perfectly normal state of affairs.
He refers to the barbarity that mass deportations would impose on migrants but again fails to make any mention of the barbarity of workers separated from their families or to their living conditions or working conditions here in Ireland while they serve our needs. All the while, he barely glances at the causes of the barbarities that drives them to seek a new life elsewhere.
In addition, he says “Ireland recruits nurses from abroad while many Irish-trained’ nurses leave for Australia, Britain and Canada. It recruits workers internationally while thousands of Irish citizens continue to emigrate every year. The same economy imports labour and exports labour.” This aspect is passed over without even a hint of exasperation at the insanity of Irish-trained nurses working abroad and foreign-trained nurses working here. Nor is there any mention of the fact that so many of the highly qualified workers who migrate to Ireland come from countries where their services are desperately required. Or that many of the highly qualified workers from those countries come from the better-off sections of society than from the people who might benefit most from such a move. Or that Ireland actively poaches professionals from such countries. Or any consideration for the social consequences of all concerned and their families.
O’Neill tells us that “between April 2024 and April 2025, approximately 35,000 Irish citizens emigrated.” A look at the wider statistics for the same period shows a bigger picture:
According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Population and Migration Estimates, 125,300 people entered (immigrated to) Ireland in the 12-month period between April 2024 and April 2025.
This was a 16% decrease compared to the previous 12-month period (April 2023–April 2024), which saw approximately 149,200 arrivals.
Breakdown of Immigrants by Citizenship (Year to April 2025):
| Category / Citizenship | Estimated Number of Arrivals | Share of Total |
| Non-EU / Non-UK Citizens | ~63,600 | ~51% |
| Returning Irish Citizens | ~31,500 | ~25% |
| Other EU Citizens | ~25,300 | ~20% |
| UK Citizens | ~4,900 | ~4% |
- Net Migration: During the same 12-month period, roughly 65,600 people emigrated (left Ireland). Subtracting emigration from total immigration leaves a net inward migration of +59,700 people.
- Overall Population: Driven by net migration and natural increase (births minus deaths), Ireland’s population rose by 78,300 to stand at approximately 5.46 million in April 2025.
Now tell us that the addition of 59,700 people in one year did not have a stressing impact on housing, health or education, etc while also contributing to the provision of such services.
We appreciate that not all aspects of any particular issue can be addressed in a single article. However, Socialist Voice and the CPI have had very little to say on these issues and what has been said has been highly questionable – just like this article is. O’Neill argues that “mass deportation” is not a legitimate response to the scale of immigration and he is correct about that. But his entire article is based on an argument that mass deportation is the only option on the table for managing the situation. Building sympathy for his argument on that weak foundation is not just inadequate, it is dishonest.
Irish-centric at expense of an internationalist perspective
Considering how Irish-centric the article is, it is hard to fathom how O’Neill completely missed the opportunity to refer to our unique historical experience with the horrors of imperialism and its resulting forced displacement of Irish people over generations. It is also notable that as a communist he fails to provide any international perspective and has nothing to say about Ireland’s direct role – supporting and promoting both military and economic warfare – in creating the conditions that cause mass migrations in the first place.
As a consequence of the CPI not having a policy on migration matters, it falls on individual contributors to try to deal with issues from their personal perspectives. In our July review of Socialist Voice we stated “There is also a curious focus on the vulgar right” and here we have it again as it is only the vulgar right who are talking about mass deportation. Yet, the entirety of this article is based on that very premise.
As always, instead of developing an independent analysis and developing an independent policy, the CPI simply reacts to immediate talking points and gets sucked into the agendas of its natural adversaries. Worse still, it then attempts – though again unsuccessfully – to beat them at their own game by presenting, as they do, inadequate, distorted and dishonest arguments.
It is distinctly unhelpful to any objective consideration of these complex issues that the right presents us with the negative aspects of migration while the so-called left and the liberals (who can tell the difference these days?) presents us with all the glossy aspects while all are highly selective in their presentations.
There is a world of humanity – and inhumanity – between those equally shameful and dangerous positions.
CPI website
Still no signs of life in the CPI website. More than half-way through August and there are just two updates – an announcement of an event at Féile an Phobail and a transcript of a speech by Cuban President,Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
And no sign of the party programme and constitution adopted at the National Congress at the end of April either. These documents are already agreed texts that require no editing (at least in theory, that is).
Announced with great fanfare in the April issue of Socialist Voice, For Peace, Independence and Socialism – Communists Gather for 27th Congress, Jimmy Corcoran beamed that “Ireland’s communists will gather in Dublin this month for the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of Ireland. Delegates to Congress will debate and vote on the Political Resolution, an International Resolution, and motions from Party Branches.”
“The process leading to Congress began over 18 months ago with Political Schools …………..” This fed into the Political Resolution drafted by the National Executive Committee, which was then discussed by the party membership, and amendments were proposed by the Branches. Congress is the culmination of this collective process of inner-party democracy.”
All that time and work and still nothing to show for it!
Still, if you are stuck for some revolutionary activity under the wing of the CPI, you can, according to other sections in “What do we do” on the website, campaign against the Lisbon Treaty or further the campaign to Repudiate the Debt (initiated in 2011).