Last October, I travelled to Cuba and saw first-hand what decades of illegal, unjust economic blockade have done to a proud and resilient people.
Hospitals without basic medical supplies. Families living through 20-hour daily power outages. Children, 12,000 of them, going without the treatment they need, not because Cuban doctors lack skill or compassion, but because a foreign policy designed to strangle a nation has succeeded in strangling its people instead.
This is the same Cuba that has sent doctors and nurses to every corner of the globe in times of crisis, asking nothing in return.
The same Cuba that even as it struggles to keep the lights on, continues to show the world what genuine international solidarity looks like.
It is long past time we returned the favour.
That is why the SIPTU’s Solidarity with Cuba Forum has sponsored a €10,000 consignment of enriched powdered milk formula, now on its way to a main hospital in Havana to nourish mothers and infants.
This shipment carries the name of our late comrade Dr Jack McGinley, a founding member of the Forum and a man who led delegation after delegation to Cuba over nearly two decades believing in his heart and his soul that solidarity is not mere a slogan but a clear and direct action.
We have visited Cuba four times since 2009. Each visit SIPTU staff and activists have carried over what the blockade denies Cuban families, school supplies, personal items, even guitar strings because music, like hope, is something no embargo can take away.
But donations alone cannot undo a blockade.
When we recently hosted Elizabeth Ribalta of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples at Liberty Hall, she was direct and stark in her words, the crisis facing Cuban families is not accidental it is the result of deliberate economic and psychological warfare, now intensified under the Trump administration. Vaccine production is stalled.
Fuel is scarce. Medical staff are walking to work because there is no fuel for transport.
Solidarity cannot stop at fundraising.
We are calling on the Irish Government to use its voice and influence within the EU and its diplomatic relationships with the US to demand an end to this illegal blockade, just as we call for an end to the injustices being inflicted on the people of Gaza.
International law must mean something for everyone, no exceptions.
Cuba has always stood with the world. Now the world, and all trade unionists, must stand with Cuba.
Hasta la Victoria Siempre!
This Sunday Read was written by Eira Gallagher, Head of SIPTU College