Arthur Morgan giving Sinn Féin's view of Budget 2010.

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Here is the speech that says it as it is...
"The worst is over. The worst is over. I have listened to the Minister repeat these words across the media, almost mantra like, for the last 24 hours and I’ve had enough. Because Minister I would like to know who exactly is the worst over for.

Because it’s not the half million people who are out of work – people who are living through the worst every single day of the week and trying to do the best by their children. People who are struggling for hope.

I wonder minister do you ever talk to real people – have you spoken to any young couples in towns like Youghal, Clonmel or Waterford, who have both lost their jobs and are now terrified about losing their home. Have you spoken to parents across rural Ireland from An Daingean to West Donegal who are preparing once again to send their children to foreign shores. Have you spoken to parents worried that their young son is sinking into despair.

Where is the hope for them, when will the worst end for them Minister.

I listen to you tell us it is too complicated to bring in a higher rate of tax for people earning more than €2000 a week, it is too complicated to remove the PRSI ceiling, it is too complicated to standardise tax reliefs. I guarantee you that there are many people out there this evening – widow women, people on disability payments, people who lost their job - who wish that it was more complicated to take money from them. Who wish there was some scheme to protect their €204 a week or their Christmas bonus. If the Minister had done any of the complicated things he could have protected those on lower incomes hundreds of times over.

But that is not what this goverment is about. There is not one iota of fairness in this budget, there is no hope offered for those who most need it, there is only more of the same – protect those at the top and everyone else should just get on with it.

Nobody should be fooled – the politics of Charlie McCreevy is alive and well in this government – they just aren’t quite as blatant about it.

Well minister I want to tell you that enough is enough. People don’t want to be patronised, they don’t want meaningless platitude, they don’t want false hope. They want answers. They want real jobs for real pay.

Can we blame young people if they are cynical and disillusioned with the political system? Can we blame them if they see no future in this country? Young people are experiencing the highest rates of unemployment and young couples who bought homes and started families in the last couple of years are suffering the most from negative equity and cuts to child benefit. Now their dole payments are being cut to encourage them to take up courses and jobs which don’t exist. No young person want to sit at home in their parents house on the dole. They want to work. They want to use the skills they have learnt. Targeting young people in this way is a recipe for social unrest.
Young people will look at politicians in this house and ask “What right have they to throw away my future?” They deserve better than this budget. They deserve jobs, education and fair incomes. They are our future.

We said argued that those who can afford to pay more should be asked to do so – this budget does the opposite. It is targeting those who cannot afford to live on less. As a result of this budget some people will be forced to choose between food and heating, and to make things even worse the government is putting up the price of heating fuel.

They have the ordinary worker and the unemployed upside down trying to shake out the last few pennies from their pockets. They are intent on driving people into poverty p into the arms of moneylenders and the offices of the SVP


The Minister is deluded and he is trying to delude himself.
Funding for primary schools has been slashed by 27%.
Funding for disadvantage
In a budget which targeted cuts at disadvantaged communities, funding for educational disadvantaged is to be cut by 62%. And the drugs taskforce funding is to be cut by 11%. These cuts shows us that it is the poor who are being made to pay the highest price for Fianna Fáil’s recklessness.

Local Gov fund
The 11% reduction in the local government grant will have serious implications for provision of local services. Service charges and rates will be forced up

PRSI changes in 2011
The proposed changes in the PRSI system to come in 2011 will see any progressivity taken out of the system

Introduction:
Minister, this savage Budget is the economic equivalent of kicking an injured man when he is down. The Irish economy is on the floor and along come the boot boys of Fianna Fáil to give it another good going over. This Budget will cause poverty and deflation, driving our economy into deeper recession.

And all because of the selfishness and short-sightedness of Fianna Fáil and their pathetic so-called partners in the Green Party.

The huge Budget deficit is a result of the Irish economic recession, a recession caused by your disastrous policies and gross mismanagement. The deficit is the symptom not the cause. You have chosen to treat the symptom in the most brutal fashion while doing nothing about the cause. This recession is as much one of ideas, as it is of resources.

Over the last two years you’ve dragged us to the edge of economic doom and today you pushed us off.

I have one hope for this budget. And that is that it will serve as a wake up call for the Irish people. Over the course of the last 12 months, we as a people have witnessed this government committing a series of con jobs, from the levies and social welfare cuts in April, to the €54 billion NAMA rip off. The government has been helped by the media, and Fine Gael and Labour, in convincing people that the savagery of this budget is necessary.

Well it is not. There was another way. Of course we could never expect Fianna Fáil to take us the fair route considering they caused the problems in the first place.

This budget was a chance. It was an opportunity to show some vision. Even now it’s not too late to put Ireland on the road to recovery. It is not beyond us financially to stimulate this economy.
A programme for jobs, an investment in people, a commitment to protect the most vulnerable as we turn things around is all possible. Sinn Féin has shown that it is possible. Our pre-budget Submission, The Road to Recovery, carefully considered by us and by like-minded economists, and costed by the Department of Finance, proved that there was an alternative to what you have done here today Minister. A way in which to raise money through bringing fairness to an unfair and unequal taxation system, through cutting state subsidies to the private sector and through ending the greed amongst high earners fostered and encouraged by this government.

Today you have shown us that Fianna Fáil and the Greens are still wedded to the fiscal policies of Charlie McCreevey. To save €4 billion from the deficit, the government has shown itself willing to further impoverish low-income families. The cuts to social welfare will deepen inequality in Ireland, already one of the most unequal states in the OECD. The cuts to education make a laughing stock of our so-called knowledge economy. You tell me Minister how we build a knowledge economy in damp and freezing prefabs and with inadequate IT equipment. The cuts to health, and I make no exaggeration when I say this, will be the difference between life and death for thousands of people.
A charge for medical card prescriptions is despicable. It attacks the principle of free health care for those most in need and, though the charge may seem low, the worst hit will be those most dependent on medication. And of course, once introduced, it will be increased year on year.

Minister you are Robin Hood in reverse. You’ve taken from the poor to give to the rich. And worse, you’ve made absolutely sure that recovery will take longer than it should because you’ve hit the lifeblood of the economy. You’ve hit the spenders, in an economy reliant on consumption taxes. You’ve hit the education system, the building blocks for a turnaround. For a party that has long prided itself on its alleged ability to manage the economy you’ve outed yourself today.
Had you made even one tough decision - introducing a third tax rate, standardising tax reliefs, capping higher-end civil servants’ pay – you would have saved yourself and the state a lot of tough decisions next year. You’ve done nobody any favours by going after the easy targets in this budget. Your half-hearted gestures of pay cuts for yourself and the rest of the highest earners do not go anywhere near far enough in terms of what you should be contributing to get the economy up and running. It is your high wages that contributed to the deficit – not those in social welfare. You’re failure to see this has only delayed and made worse the inevitable.
It is essential that we develop a fair taxation system in this state. We will have to review the billions that are spent on tax expenditures. We will have to put an end to the state propping up private banks, an end to this government’s schemes for socialising debt and privatising profit.
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And we will have to address the economic insanity of partition and the damage it is doing to the potential of both parts of this island.

Fianna Fáil and the Greens have shown themselves completely incapable of tackling any of these issues and God knows, you’ve had more than enough chances.
The sad reality is that I have very little faith in Fine Gael and Labour being able to handle the state’s affairs any better. Both parties have wholeheartedly bought into the government’s analysis of the economy and provided their own proposals for cutting social welfare, public spending and workers’ pay. All of this can be expected from Fine Gael on any given day, but Labour have again lurched to the right, obviously bracing themselves to get into bed with Fine Gael. It would seem from reading Labour’s pre-budget submission that they are pro-jobs but anti-workers. Perhaps the Labour leadership is attracted by the bright lights of IBECs annual conference, leaving their former trade union comrades in the dark in these hard times when real struggle will be required.

Every citizen in this state should be aware that replacing Fianna Fáil and the Greens with Fine Gael and Labour will make no difference to economic recovery. Fine Gael and Labour would implement the same policies in a different package, with the same bad results for the economy.

While the establishment parties close ranks and display a disturbing uniformity in their policies, we are the ONLY party that stands up for working people, whether they are in jobs or not. We are unique because we are the ONLY party with an alternative analysis of the situation. We address the problems in the economy with the aim of eventually reducing the deficit. The other parties set out proposals to reduce the deficit without ever dealing with the problems of the economy.

It is with this sentiment Minister, that I analyse what you have delievered to the House and to the country. I will look at the areas where you chose to slash and burn and explain how it could have been done differently and the better result it would have delivered. I hope the people at home will listen and decide from the contributions made here today who they would rather have had bringing a budget to this chamber.

No trust
Minister, when you introduced the emergency budget in April last, you stated that the economy would need to adjust a further €4 billion over the course of 2010 and you would set out how that figure would be raised and saved in this budget, which you have done. The elephant in the room is that in April, that €4 billion figure was planned as an adjustment to a much smaller deficit of approximately €20 billion. The fall in tax revenue over the last seven months means the deficit is wider now and yet you are still maintaining that that €4 billion figure is necessary. And Fine Gael and Labour agree with you.

I have a question – why? Why is €4 billion the figure needed and why should we believe you? You’ve got it wrong up to now. The European Commission has already had to extend the period for economic recovery offered to your goverenment by a year. Your plan has unravelled before it is even started.

Sinn Féin did not set about raising €4 billion in our pre-Budget submission in October. We sat down and worked out how the tax system could be made fairer and how much was needed for a stimulus package. We believe a stimulus package and an investment in the Irish economy would not only recover confidence at home but also abroad. The government can repeat ad nauseum that it believes international investors are responding well to its plans of slashing spending, but in reality what international investors can see is a government sinking beneath the waves.. The Department of Finance’s forecasts are adjusting downwards by the month as are Exchequer returns. This doesn’t inspire confidence. The rest of the world is responding to economic woe with ambititous stimulus plans. This government and Fine Gael and Labour’s response is to return to the constrictive right wing economic policies of the 80s. You are determined to make this situation worse and see us waste more years before recovery begins.

Our pre-Budget proposals raise over €7.5 billion. Our figures were designed to stimulate the economy, not to deflate it. Our tax raising measures were aimed at the high earners to ensure they did not hit the spending power of the middle and lower earners.

That thinking is conspicously absent in the government’s strategy for fiscal adjustment and it is telling. Every measure taken over the last 12 months has further contracted the economy. This budget will be no different.

You have taken €4 billion out of the economy Minister, in the most damaging way. The scenario that will be played out in 2010 will be more job losses, further falls in property prices and decreasing revenue returns, and we know that all this will happen because we have seen it happen throughout history. The Minister knows this will happen too, so his budget today can only be seen in one light – he is delaying recovery because he wants to protect the golden circle in this state for 12 months longer and maybe more. He is also determined to protect those in the silver circle – the high earning households. That is why he has taken these harsh and vicious measures, such as cuts to social welfare.

Social welfare
There is a fundamental principle that divides Sinn Féin from other parties in this state. We see social welfare as a right, not a luxury payment that can be cut at will depending on the economic climate. Families depend on it for their food and survival.

In approaching this budget, there was a lot of talk about the need to reduce the social welfare bill. The government and some media commentators have acted shamefully towards the social provisions of this state. Not once, in all the talk about the social welfare bill, was reference made to the possibility of reducing social welfare spend by keeping people in jobs and creating new jobs. Instead the focus was on rates, and the argument was made by Fianna Fáil, the Green Party, other establishment parties and some in the media that €204 per week is too much to live on. Too much. What kind of people think it is acceptable to take money off someone on €200 a week but not from someone on over €2,000 a week?

We do have problems in our social welfare system. There is definitely fraud. There is definitely ridiculously complicated administration involved. The system is in fact a bureacratic nightmare. All of this has increased under this government’s watch. There is no area their incompetent hands have not reached into and ruined.

But the way to deal with all the problems in social welfare that end up costing the state extra money, is to deal with the problems. Not to cut rates.

Cutting social welfare payments will have a detrimental effect on the economy and society. Social welfare payments are always returned back into the economy. They are not saved or invested abroad. They are spent on rent, mortgages, food, utilities and other essentials. Cutting welfare expenditure is a false economy and one that will ultimately only cause misery for those on the receiving end of the policy. We do not accept the argument of deflation for welfare cuts. The fall in the cost price index this year includes mortgage interest.

A number of items have not come down in price, they have in fact increased and they disproportionately target the less well off. Bus fares, childcare, primary and secondary school education, doctor fees, dental fees, hospital services and insurance costs have all gone up. These costs make a lie of the argument that people on social welfare and low wages can afford to live on less.

We have already seen the effects of cuts made to social welfare payments this Christmas. The loss of the Christmas bonus, a double payment which effected 1.3 million people, is money that would have been spent in our shops on Santy presents and Christmas food. The government’s Scrooge measures will come back to haunt it when it is counting its VAT pennies at the end of this month. It will also have an effect on the retail sector possibly increasing the number of job losses there and adding more people onto social welfare queues.

Grading the rate of Job seekers allowance by age further to the measures taken in the Supplementary Budget 2009 is an abuse of power by the Government and shows just how out of touch Lenihan and his finance squad really are. The proposal to reduce the rate of Social Welfare to €100 and €150 a week for those between ages 20 and 24, A CUT OF 25% undermines the main focus for economic recovery: getting Ireland back to work. Discriminating against young adults in relation to their welfare entitlements is grossly unfair. It is necessary to frame this in realistic terms, rather than from the ‘top-down budgeting’ perspective: young people are finishing college after 3/4/5 years of education, there is a freeze on public sector employment, little if any employment in the private sector and they have most likely accumulated debt during the course of their studies. Many of these young adults are on the margins and may not have qualified for a local authority grant and, as such, would have accrued debts through student loans. Now, they come out of college and are expected to live off €150 a week.

The remaining cuts are equally punitive.
If there was any justice in this world every single member of that side of the house would lose their jobs in the next election and have to live on what they have inflicted on people here today.

Child benefit
Equally, the measures you have taken on child benefit will do nothing to fix the economy. They are further evidence of a sticking plaster approach displaying this government’s inability to leave any social provision protected from its grubby claws.
Child benefit is a universal payment made to every child in this state in recognition that every child is born equal and that this state provides children literally with nothing after they turn six weeks old. That’s when free health care for children in this state ends – six weeks old. And then they are left without childcare, without the financial ability in many cases for their parents to stay at home, without a fully functional education system. You have attacked every single child in this state today Minister.

Public sector pay bill
The cuts to the public sector pay bill offer another unimaginative approach to fixing this recession. In our pre-Budget proposals we identified savings in the public sector pay bill. We identified those savings by capping the pay of individuals earning over €100,000.

You tell me Minister, how can we as a state afford to pay any civil servant in excess of €100,000 a year when, as Mary Harney told us on the Week in Politics recently, we have the IMF breathing down our necks because of the mess the public finances are in? These people need to get real. Brendan Drumm, if you take into account his bonus last year, received €450 grand for helping to run the health service into the ground. That is 19 times higher than the basic salary of a civil servant of €24 grand.

But your government and Fine Gael and Labour believe that the canteen worker, the usher, the office worker, should all bear the pain of this recession in equal measure to Brendan Drumm. Fine Gael and Labour have actually provided you with solutions for this. Well over the last number of years Drumm and his ilk have taken a lot more from the public pay bill and thereby contributed a lot more to the deficit than any average public sector worker.

Your cuts do not recognise this madness. Instead they look at pay across the board and slash it across the board. You’re cuts of a further 5% on top of the pension levy on people earning below €30,000 is a pay cut of €1,500 per year. For those on €70,000 it is €4,500. What is the long term achievement here? You’ve taken spending power from a group we need spending to turn the economy around. You want people to live on 2004 wages wth 2009 costs. You’ve achieved the agenda of Colm McCarthy and Co. of driving down the standard of living and the rights of the majority but you’ve done little for economic recovery.

Taxation measures
As I stated earlier, Sinn Féin’s pre-Budget proposals succeed in raising and saving in excess of €7.5 billion, a good deal of which came from simply bringing more fairness to the taxation system.

There are some paltry measures here Minister. The tax on exiles does not go far enough. The raising of the effective tax rate goes someway but not far enough.

But it is not enough. There are no wealth taxes. No third rate. No abolishment of the PRSI ceiling. And I wonder what the benefit of the universal contribution at its low rate will be for high earners. There has been a great deal of PR conducted by the government and its minions in relation to why taxation is an untouchable.

There is still a great deal of inequality in the taxation system. On the one hand you tell us that we cannot afford to raise tax. Yet, you’re going around telling all and sundry that we are still a low tax economy and that has been this government’s greatest achievment.

This is nothing to be proud of. We have a €22 billion deficit and the government is still refusing to create a fair taxation system. We need to stimulate the economy and to do that we need revenue. Taxation cannot continue to be the untouchable and you cannot continue to go around lauding our low tax economy as being job creation friendly. Here are the facts. Low taxes at the top are not stimulating the economy and at the bottom we are actually not low tax for the bulk of PAYE workers. The bottom percentage rate of income tax is low but there is a huge degree of stealth taxation and a lack of service provision that makes Ireland, for this group, a high tax economy. They are the group that cannot be touched for more tax. But the government is determined to have it both ways – high taxes at the bottom, low taxes at the top – it is not sustainable.

This government will soon have no option but to address the inefficiencies in the tax system. The Commission on Taxation has identified 245 tax reliefs that between them pay back out almost as much as is taken in income tax. Many of these reliefs are abused by high earners.

There is no sophistication in the system. We have two tax bands. Most other countries have between three to five. Are we incapable of developing a fair and progressive taxation system or is it a lack of political will to make sure those at the top pay their fair share? The government claims that there is progressivity. There is no progressivity in our tax system after €75,000. If anything, you can progressively pay less tax the higher up the earning scale you go and the better your access to a good tax accountant is.

The sad reality is that eventually when the government is forced into reversing the inequalities it itself wrote into the tax code, the public finances will have spiralled out of control. And I predict it will be the lower earners who the government looks to to raise tax first.

Carbon tax
The carbon tax will not bring fairness to the system. A carbon tax if it is to work effectively should be revenue neutral. This government is using it to raise revenue. The Green party appear to have lost much of their thinking capacity but surely even they realise Fianna Fáil has only committed itself to this measure as a way of plugging the financial hole. Fianna Fáil is no more interested in saving the world than it is in saving the economy.

Fine Gael and Labour both include the carbon tax as a revenue raiser in their budgets. This tax will in all likelihood have the effect of inflicting more fuel poverty on the vulnerable. And we will be no closer to achieving our Kyoto targets.



Excise duty
Minister, I welcome the initiative on excise duty, which I hope will save some jobs, though a considerable number have already been lost in the retail trade. It is an inescapable fact, there has been a huge loss of excise duty and VAT as a result of partition on this island. There is a considerable market of some six million people across Ireland. Since the Good Friday Agreement, trade between North and South has steadily increased. Progress towards creating a truly all-Ireland economy is being made through the newly developed All Ireland Energy Market; Tourism Ireland; and through InterTrade Ireland which since 2003 has benefited over 1,300 businesses and created hundreds of jobs.
However, much more needs to be done. An all-island economy is an imperative.
Differences in VAT, Corporation Tax, Excise Duties and Currency create barriers to economic development on both sides of the border, and cost millions in tax revenue. The removal of such impediments will create efficiencies, employment, wealth and opportunity across this island. Sinn Féin proposes an All Ireland Economic Committee from the Dáil and the Assembly tasked with harmonizing taxes across this island; A joint north south Ministerial approach to promote our international food brand; An all-Ireland agricultural body to implement all standards that safeguard the reputation of Irish agricultural produce.
Absence of stimulus
The stimulus in this budget is a joke. It is a couple of hundred million. The government has put €54 billion into banks. The government has ensured we will be back here again next year in an even worse position.

There is no easy way out of this recession. The government’s way is to slash spending. Our way is to save and create jobs, and protect the most vulnerable. Our way is better for the economy and better for people. The only jobs you create with this budget Minister is jobs in debt collecting agencies.

Sinn Fein’s pre-Budget proposed a stimulus costing approximately €4 billion, roughly 2.5% of projected GDP in 2010. The €54 Billion allowed to NAMA is approximately 33% of GDP. Our stimulus is equivalent to the investment made in Anglo-Irish bank. Our proposals have the potential to save over 100,000 jobs in 2010 and create over 100,000 more, as well as better position the economy to increase jobs in 2011. According to trade union estimates, the cumulative cost of new and continuing unemployment over the next two years could reach €10 billion. If we spend in 2010, we could see positive growth in the Exchequer in 2011. If we do not, we will just see further contraction.

There are currently 425,000 people on the live register. This number is likely to grow and there is no government strategy to deal with it. The government claims that saving the banks will fix the economy. Proving them wrong will be cold comfort to the many people who have lost their jobs, who face this Christmas in debt, in poverty and with the prospect of the very small payments made to them by the state, being cut. Emigration is already on the rise. This year was the first in a long time that saw emigration outpace immigration.

Sinn Féin believes that there is a better way forward, we do not have to return to the 1980s. Our suggestions are immediate, and if invested in, should see a return to the Exchequer by way of saved social welfare payments and tax, in 2010.

We have both raised money for our costed proposals and propose transferring money from the National Pension Reserve Fund (€2 billion), which should be accessed in this exceptional period of need. Our rationale regarding use of the NPRF is simple. At this point in time, the state cannot afford to keep money in reserve for future pensioners when the current generation of pensioners are being asked to live in poverty. We would access this money now to help the state recover and when we have recovered, we would begin saving for the future again and implement a new system of decent universal pension provision that does not see billions spent on the private pension industry while state dependent pensioners suffer.

Our proposals include establishing a jobs retention fund available to SMEs worth €600 million. We want to reduce the cost of doing business by freezing the cost of state-controlled services for one year.

We want to use the public sector and direct public employment to kickstart the economy. The National Development Plan has to be completely redrawn to focus on the more labour intensive and necessary infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, energy efficiency in homes and public transport provision. This infrastructure will improve the state and provide jobs in construction, architecture, engineering and all the other trades. We also want to build the state childcare and pre-education sector through both fully-trained accredited childcare workers, infrastructure provisions and state subsidies for employees in this sector.

Minister, just like with the taxation system, the need for a stimulus must be addressed. I do not have any faith in your government’s ability to address it. I fear that you and others like you will have run this state into the ground before anyone with vision is in that office to turn things around.


Sinn Féin has set out its vision. We may have a while to go before a general election and I’m sure there’s a lot more damage Fianna Fáil and the Green’s can do before then, but my party will continue to set out an alternative. As I said at the beginning, I hope this Budget serves the purpose of waking up the Irish people. You may be afraid to put yourself before the Irish people any time soon, but they have long memories."

Hospital Campaign in the Council Chamber

Today was an important day in the campaign to save our services in Louth County Hospital. We had a meeting of Louth County Hospital and I tabled the following emergency motion;

"That this Council rejects HSE plans, backed by the Minister for Health and Children and the Government to remove;
24 Hour A&E
Acute Medical Services
Intensive Care Unit
at Louth County Hospital in Dundalk.

This Council sees these plans as a threat to our health services and our communities. The C. Diff outbreak in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in drogheda demonstrates that it is not feasible to reduce 120 beds in Louth County Hospital to 33 step down beds.

This Council commends the approx 7,000 people who atted the torchlight rally at Market Square in Dundalk on the 12th November last week.

That Louth County Council also calls on the County Development Board, Louth Economic Forum and County Enterprise Board to publicly state that they oppose the closure of these essential services."


It was a simple motion. To the point. But not simple enough for a Fianna Fáil Councillor, Declan Breathnach. That Councillor once chaired a Health Board meeting that closed a Maternity Unit. He walked away from the HSE Forum when there was a fight to stop the TeamWorks Report. This morning, this example of trembling Fianna Fáilure told us he would not take part in a rally to save hospital services.

No surprise there then Declan. We have fought battles without you before. Much as we would like all councillors to defend the people's services, we will do it without you.

By the way, the motion was proposed by me, seconded by an Independent, mumbled about by a FGer but eventually was carried unanimously (including Frank Maher and James Carroll of FF). Declan Breathnach had already run away from the row.

Planning Condition "Benefits banks but bankrupts families"

Planning Condition "Benefits banks but bankrupts families" - Sharkey tells European Parliament Committee.

Louth County Councillor Tomás Sharkey is due to make a presentation to the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament on what he says is an "unfair deal for families and a lucrative bonus for banks."

The high profile Councillor will be making the case before the committee this week.
Speaking about the case Councillor sharkey said;

"For some years now occupancy clauses have been imposed on planning permission for one - off homes in rural Ireland. This clause means that the families are bound to live in the home for 5 or 7 years, depending on the area. This clause has been introduced as a result of the 2000 Planning and Development Act and also the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines of 2005. if the family wishes to sell their property, they can only sell on to another longstanding local resident with a housing need.

"In general there has been no issue with this clause but in recent times more and more people have noticed a blatant advantage to banks in this planning condition. Where a family are restricted as to who they may sell the property on to, a bank which repossesses the home can sell that house on the open market to anybody from Ardee to Adelaide.

"Basically, a family in financial difficulty cannot sell their home and realise their asset unless they sell to another local with a housing need, deflating the potential price available. Many hard pressed families are in this situation. However, this burden does not apply to a bank if they repossess the home. After repossessing a family's home, the bank alone will enjoy an open market.

"I am making this petition to the committee of the European Parliament in an attempt to highlight the advantage that banks have been receiving from planning legislation over the years in Ireland. We now need to see an end to unfair practices like this. I will be calling on the committee to accept there is an anomoly and give an undertaking to investigate measures to address it."

Notes to editors;
Section 39(2) of the Planning and Development Act is available on www.irishstatutebook.ie
The occupancy conditions are detailed on the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines, Appendix 1

Brutality - from the people who hide behind patient safety

Tomás Sharkey has hit out at the last minute cancellation of a variety of vital clinics in Louth County Hospital over the coming weeks and has claimed that lives are being put at risk by HSE management at the behest of an uncaring government.

"All this week, sick and vulnerable patients have been receiving calls cancelling their appointments at medical, stroke, diabetic and surgical clinics to name but a few, over the next fortnight. This latest action by the HSE demonstrates it's disregard for the people across this county.

"These clinics are vital for the patients. I spoke to the family of a recent stroke victim. His appointment for next Monday was cancelled only this Thursday morning over the phone. This is no way to treat patients and their families.

"After the next two weeks of appointments in the diabetic clinic have been cancelled, the next available dates are in May 2010. This situation is an absolute disgrace and vindicates the people from all across Louth who oppose the cuts be it Transformation or otherwise.

"I am challenging the HSE and members of the government to come clean and admit that they are no longer acting in the best interests of patients.
I have contacted the offices of Des O'Flynn and Stephen Mulvaney who are rolling out the cuts and closures across our hospitals. Administration in Louth County Hospital are merely passing on the public's concerns to these senior officials.

"I want the decision-makers to speak face to face with the sick patients who will not see a diabetes doctor until May 2010 or have an appointment in the stroke clinic for months to come."

When a government refuses to govern or care

Today it came to light that Brendan Drumm will receive a bonus of €70,000 for services rendered in 2007. The HSE Health Minister Ms Harney insisted that the approval of the bonus paid to Mr Drumm should not be a matter for her as Minister of Health.“The last thing we need is a meddling minister getting involved in contractual issues around individuals,” said Ms Harney.

This refusal to have a say or even to take a position on the affairs of her own department (Yes, Mary is Minister for Health) says it all about this government and health.

You see today was also the day that the Save Our Hospital Group met John Gormley in Leinster House. We met Mr Gormley because he failed to attend a rally last Thursday and we wanted to hear what his party were doing to save our A&E and Acute Medical Services. We asked Martin Bellew, chair of Dundalk Town Council, along. We learned that this cabinet member is content to let the HSE make dangerous decisions.

Today wasn't exactly a waste of a journey. We heard first hand how little John Gormley cares about our plight. Today we heard him ask what our needs were, what the situation was with maternity and what we were willing to negotiate on. John needs to learn that we have nothing to negotiate. Our hospital will only save lives if we have A&E and Acute Medical. But John should have known that as he promised on the 16th April 2007 tht he would save these services. John should have known that maternity was stolen in 2001 as he was the Green's spokesperson on health.
Today was not a waste of a journey because we now know that the Green Party have made no demands for us. They have not tried to raise our plight. What was a "key demand" in 2007 and a "deal breaker" last week has been put on the bottom of a compost bin.

Today we learned that the Green Party dont care, have done next to nothing, and will only go through the motions when pushed. We learned that a cycle path from Barna to Oranmore is higher up their list than the wards in a hospital.

So what if sections of the media think I am pushy on this issue. So what if Fianna Fáil try to portray me as emotional on this issue. I am pushy and emotional about the hospital and am proud to be.

If the people of Dundalk read Mary Harney's comment;“I have total confidence in the board of the HSE and I must say I think the CEO of the HSE [Prof Drumm] does a fantastic job,” there will not be enough defibrillators, blood pressure tablets or beds in all of Ireland to deal with the effects.

Dundalk Town Hall says it as it is

Last night saw a huge crowd packing every seat, step, standing space and indeed the foyer in Dundalk Town Hall. The staff were brilliant. The public were there to Save Our Hospital, the speakers were saying it as the public see it.

John Gormley didnt come. He was busy but promises a meeting in the Dáil next week. We will be there ... if there still is a government.

Dermot Ahern did not show up. He sent no apology but did send a statement in the hands of a FF councillor. We as a committee agreed that the statement should be heard. The people refused to hear it from Fianna Fáil.

As chairman of the mass meeting, I read Dermot Aherns words to the meeting. Imagine how nervous I was reading on behalf of a man so knowledgeable and powerful! Imagine the passion I put into that piece of public puppetry.

There was anger in the hall. All ages, all classes were angry with the proposed closur of our hospital.

We the people have kept the hospital open by campaigning every week, every year for 40 years.
We the people fear for our lives if the hospital closes.
We the people insist that promises be kept.

Everybody interested in this campaign should visit www.louthhospital.com

Óg nó aosta .... céasta

Is cuma cén aois atá agat, ní féidir éalú ó na hionsaithe atá an rialtas seo ag déanamamh ar phobal na tíre.

Tá séirbhísí sláinte gearrtha go dtí an cnámh cheana féin. Níl go leor banaltraí phobail ann chun cuairteanna a thabhairt ar pháístí nua-shaolta nó a máithreacha. Is ionann sin is a rá go bhfuil máithreacha óga faoi ghruaim agus páistí óga le fadhbanna feabhais nach bhfuil aitheanta go fóill agus mo Dhia na himpleachtaí a bhéas air sin amach anseo.

Tá na scoileanna sa tír i ngéarrchéim. An tseachtain seo bhí ar phríomhoide scoile cúnamh a fháil chun páipéar tóine a chur ar fáil do na páistí. Nárbh fhearr dóibh na himlitreacha, treoirlínte riaracháin agus orduithe ón Aire a stróiceadh agus a chrochad ar thairne taobh thiar de dhoras an sciobóil amuigh?

Bhí sioc ann ar maidin. An chéad sioc den gheimhreadh. Tá na duilleoga tite de na crainn agus cumhra na Samhna san aer. Marsin, tá teaghlaigh agus seandaoine ag smaoineamh ar bhreosla. Ní bhfuaireamar uilig deis cláracha gréinfhuinnimh a chur ar dhíon an tí. Táimid ag brath ar ola, gual, leictreachas. Tá an teas lárnach múctha ag go leor duine go dtí go mbeidh am an ghátair thart. Fuacht.

Seo thuas blaisíní de na fadbhanna sóisialta in Éirinn sa lá atá inniu ann. Níl seo ag dó na geirbe faoi láthair. Tá agóid ann ar cén tóin dhea-bheathaithe ar chóir ar shuíocháin ró-stuáilte.

Mo náire aicme na meáin.

Dundalk Town Hall .. tomorrow night

The people of Dundalk are gearing up for a huge public meeting in the Town Hall tomorrow night, the 8th October. Why?

It is simple. The government intends on closing our hospital. Louth County Hospital was opened 50 years ago. It was needed then and is needed now. For years now, government policy has been pushing to close the hospital. They want to centralise everything into one hospital in Drogheda.

The government's plans have nothing to do with cutbacks, recessions or the public good. They were written by an accountancy consultancy firm from England called Teamworks who have been specialising in the privatisation agenda for years.

So back to our hospital.
We lost our children's ward.
We lost our maternity ward (the only children born in Dundalk now are those born in the back of a car or an ambulance on the side of the road because the mother doesn't make it to Drogheda on time).
When I say "lost", I mean these services were removed by a careless, uncaring series of governments.

And now we are in endgame. The HSE plans on closing the A&E that saves lives and removing acute medical services that intervene when a patient is having a stroke, heart attack or even an anaphylactic shock. This should worry all of us.

So ladies and gentlemen, in the week that Dermot Ahern from Dundalk is negotiating a new programme for government on behalf of FF with a Green Party which promised us all that our hospital would be safe, we the people are taking to the civic Town Hall.

John Gormley is invited. Dermot Ahern is invited. Promises are to be left at the door and action is required.

Will they come? That is up to them. But the people of this town will be there.

Post Lisbon Referendum - No Regrets

So the Referendum is over and the Lisbon Treaty has been passed. This has been a marathon session for the Irish. Political activists on all sides must be exhausted and the voters must be glad that self amending clauses, legally binding guarantees and qualified majority voting will leave everyday conversation. That is not to say that many politicians understood the Treaty.

I don't intend to be a sore loser. I am a proud politician tonight. Proud that we in Sinn Féin successfully informed ourselves on complex issues and did out best to campaign on the facts. I am proud of all the people who helped us out and those who voted with us.

I am proud that Louth had the 7th highest No vote. Donegal beat us to it as did Cork North Central and 3 Dublin constituencies. Louth is a small county with serious social divisions.

We are proud and glad of our actions in intervening during Labour's pro government stint in Dundalk last week. My brother Paul is my strongest role model. He tells me that if you do something it is because you mean to do it. We intervened last week because we meant to. Labour can't jump up and down on a Tuesday seeking backing for Brian Cowen and tell us to vote Yes for jobs only to turn around on Saturday demanding FF go so that jobs can be created.

We have an ongoing project in Louth - Save Our Hospital. All efforts must go into this for the time being. So to everybody who is fed up of Lisbon speak, we will be talking of patients, lives, golden hours and the like from here on.

Le Meas
Tomás