Tynan rejects council "merger" plan saying "Hands Off Our City"

Cork CITY Hall

Cork Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that the proposed merger of Cork City and County Councils would be a disaster for the city and would not be positive for the county either.

Cllr. Tynan said that proposed merger made no sense from either a social, urban development, or good governance perspective.  He said the proposal amounted to nothing less than the extinguishment of Cork’s 1,000 year old existence as a city.

The Workers Party councillor said that the government had predetermined the agenda and that the statutory committee which had made the proposal was acting to that agenda.  “The fact that two of the five members dissented from the agenda shows how preposterous this proposal is.  It is purely based on saving money, not on common sense or the efficient delivery of local government services. The proposal will merely make local administration more remote and inaccessible to citizens”, said Cllr. Tynan.

“If merging two already large councils like Cork City and County Councils  made any sense then the inevitable outcome of this policy would be to end up with about six councils in the entire country – these would be six of the most unwieldy and unworkable councils ever created”, he said

Cllr. Tynan said that the proposal was not a merger but a takeover of Cork City by the larger County Council.  It would result in a dilution of democratic accountability and unworkable local electoral areas.  “In short this plan would be a disaster for the city and a disaster for the county.”

The Workers Party councillor has welcomed the comments of Lord Mayor Cllr. Chris O’Leary but has said that the opposition to the proposed merger must be widened out to the general public and all stakeholders in society.  “This is not just the merger of two councils, it is the abolition of our city, a city with a thousand year long tradition. If there was ever a reason for the city to earn the name Rebel Cork it is now.  The people of Cork City should stand united and say to Alan Kelly, the government and the three majority authors of this report HANDS OFF OUR CITY”

Tynan condemns proposed rent hike for Cork City tenants

Boarded up council house in Cork City

500 empty housing units in Cork City alone

Workers Party Councillor Ted Tynan has hit out at proposals by Cork City Council to increase housing rents in order to cover the council’s Property Tax bill.  He described the 2014 estimates proposals as “death by a thousand cuts” for council services.

Cllr. Tynan also questioned a report leaked to RTE which showed 3,500 vacant council homes in the state.  He pointed out that there were 500 such units in Cork City alone.

“The proposal to pass on property tax to council tenants exposes the true nature of this tax”, said Cllr. Tynan”, “Firstly that this is not a property tax but rather a tax on the family home since non property owners are now expected to pay.  Secondly it demolishes the government’s claim that the Property Tax is about funding local government.  This is ludicrous when local government itself is levied with this tax and seeks to pass the charge on to its tenants.”

“Once again Cork City Council is being left seriously short of government funding.  The result will undoubtedly be massive additional cuts in council services, especially in the area of housing maintenance.    The council is unable to renovate the 500 empty dwellings it owns and offer them to some of those on the housing list.  To make things worse it has emerged that funding under the RAPID scheme for five Community Safety Wardens on council estates is not going to be paid next year meaning the probable loss of these key workers who play a vital role in combating anti-social behaviour, illegal dumping and other issues.”

Cllr. Tynan said there will be strong opposition to any attempt to increase rent, especially to levy the property tax onto tenants.  “Once again local government services in Cork are being decimated by an unholy alliance government, the city hall pact parties and management, Cork’s very own Troika of destruction.”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Tynan opposes Pact nominee for Lord Mayor

Speech by Councillor Ted Tynan (Workers’ Party) opposing election of Cllr. Catherine Clancy as Lord Mayor of Cork, Friday, 21^st June 2013.

 

 

"Lord Mayor, Councillors, City Manager

 

I will be brief, as I know some of you have celebrations to go to tonight, celebrations of another foregone conclusion which the members of the pact here call an election.  You see the outcome of tonight’s mayoral election was decided more or less four years ago.  The person who will become Lord Mayor tonight was able to book her celebratory party many months ago; 12 months or more according to some sources.   Most of the seating in the public gallery has been reserved for the supporters of Councillor Clancy even though there is going to be more than one candidate here tonight.  What an awful inconvenience it must be for Cllr. Clancy and her Labour Party friends to have to go through the motions of an election and have to listen to democratically elected members who are not prepared to accept an appointment by acclamation.

 

Democracy, it would seem, is an inconvenience for the establishment parties here tonight.  They would prefer the pomp and circumstance of a changing of the guard.

 

The Workers’ Party in Cork has made the decision to support a challenge in tonight’s election.  I intend to second the nomination of Councillor Henry Cremin so that a vote can be forced tonight.  There are many differences of policy between the Workers’ Party and Cllr. Cremin’s party, Sinn Féin.  Yet I recognise that Cllr. Cremin is a hard-working and active councillor who has as much claim to the mayoralty as the candidate of the Pact.  He is much more in touch with ordinary people and has a solid record of working with them and on their behalf. 

 

I would urge the media here not to regard this challenge tonight as mere theatre or a sideshow, a bit of colour-writing to put at the end of a lengthy eulogy for the new Lord Mayor.  It is a serious choice for the councillors, whether they are prepared to sustain an undemocratic pact which has lasted more than a third of a century.

 

This is not simply about the pact however; it is about the policies of all three of these parties of the monied establishment.  Over the past number of years they have, between them, imposed appalling hardship through their support for austerity at local, national and international level.  Nationally Fianna Fáil imposed the bank bailouts and the Troika on ordinary working people with devastating consequences.  Fine Gael and Labour rubber stamped the same situation with a few cosmetic tweaks here and there, but the result has been the same. As we wait here for the crowning of a new Lord Mayor, thousands of parents of special needs children worry about the effects of the latest cuts in funding, while local authority tenants wonder what happened to the council’s housing maintenance scheme and those on the housing list must be in despair.  They must be bewildered by this circus here tonight, and they would be right to seethe with anger.

 

Before I conclude I refer to the €106,000 per annum salary of the office of Lord Mayor.  This is almost three times the average industrial salary.  It is ten times what an old-age pensioner receives.  On a daily basis here councillors, including those intending to support the Pact candidate, are told there is no money for one important service or another, be it replacement of street lighting, broken footpaths or whatever.  Some of them make a meal out of sending out leaflets to their constituents telling them how hard they fought to get something fixed but that there were no funds.  They don’t state the reason, that those funds have been cut by their own parties in order to bailout zombie banks.  This is the height of hypocrisy and shows how totally insincere these councillors are.

 

So go to your celebrations tonight. Pat one another on the back on getting another one up on the smaller parties and independents, the begrudgers as you would have it; because in a little under 12 months it won’t be the parties in here you’ll be worrying about, but the voters out there. You will be not be judged on your glossy leaflets or smug posters, but on your record and tonight you are adding another black mark to that appalling report card."

 

Thank You,

 

Councillor Ted Tynan

 

 

Cash-strapped Cork City Council splashes cash on Queen and Junk Garden

The knife continues to be wielded on a daily basis at City Hall as vital services such as housing maintenance continue to be subjected to cuts.  At the same time, the city’s refuse service has just being privatised and householders can now expect to pay a lot more for a poorer service while waivers will soon be a thing of the past regardless of your personal circumstances or income.  However while this slashing of expenditure goes on relentlessly, there seems to be no shortage of cash when it comes to junkets, so-called VIPs or frivolity.   A case in point is the visit of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth last May.      

Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan condemned the “wanton waste of public money” surrounding the visit and put down a series of probing questions to the City Manager at a recent council meeting, seeking to get to the bottom of the expenditure.  The answers to his questions were astonishing with the following expenditure being uncovered:

·         A fast-tracking of €40,031 on capital improvement to the Princes Street Market in advance of the queen’s 15 minute jaunt through the market.

·         €87,439 spent on special road works and cleansing in addition to the cost of sealing drains, manholes and culverts in case terrorists might lurk in them.

·         €70,000 on floral and hedging displays, environmental improvements and enhancement of the visual environment (putting up hoardings to hide derelict sites, painting over graffiti, etc)

·         €5,000 on a once-off website for the visit which is now redundant.

·         €30,380 on producing press packs and providing media facilities to local and visiting press and television.

·         €786.50 for a silver brooch and some leather-bound books for the queen

·         €90,195.46 on staging street events, music and producing a video.

·         €2,344 for hospitality (presumably food and drink) for visiting “dignitaries” including the Mayor of Swansea and government ministers.

That’s a total of €326,133.46 on the visit, which does not include expenditure at national level such as garda overtime, security, etc.

Then there is the now infamous sky-garden designed by “celebrity” gardener Diarmuid Gavin which Cork City Council has already spent in the region of €400,000 in purchasing, on top of almost €750,000 of taxpayers’ money spent by Fáilte Ireland.   The garden, which is now covered in tufts of grass and weeds, is lying redundant and starting to rust in the Showgrounds while the council decide what to do with it.  Meanwhile the City Manager has refused to disclose documentation on the deal with Gavin which was sought by the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information.   Cllr. Tynan has pledged to pursue the matter when at the next meeting of the city council.

Cork City Council privatises bin service

Workers Party city councillor Ted Tynan has condemned the decision of City Manager  Tim Lucey to privatise the city’s refuse service which came into effect on Monday, August 15th.

Cllr. Tynan said that the decision would have serious effects on the city and he said that the 11,000 people and families currently on council waivers would be thrown to the wolves once a 2 year introductory arrangement was over. 

“This decision by the city manager without any reference to the elected members”, said Cllr. Tynan, “is a step backward and will inevitably lead to a poorer service where profit will overtake public health and cleanliness as the number one priority.  It is a further move in the direction of rampant privatisation and gives a warning to householders that once water charges are introduced privatisation of the water service will be next on the agenda”.

“The temporary continuation of a waiver scheme and the initial price to consumers is merely a ploy, the real cost of this to consumers, and particularly to those on very low incomes, will come in a few years time.  Then we will see the real price of this service to consumers and the price to the environment and to workers’ rights and rates of pay”, he said.

The Workers Party councillor said that the move should alert householders to what is coming down the tracks if water charges are introduced without a strong challenge.  “Water Charges must be resisted because water privatisation is next on the agenda.  It cannot succeed however if there is massive resistance from householders to water metering and charges. Privatisation is about private profit and without charges there is no private profit”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Tynan for Cork North Central

Councillor Ted Tynan has been selected by the Workers' Party to contest the forthcoming general election.
Councillor Tynan, who was elected to Cork City Council in 2009 representing the North East Ward, has an unrivalled record of defending the rights of working people and their families in Cork North Central. Over many years Ted has been consistent and true to his principles. As a democratic socialist who believes that people must come first, Ted has never shied away from controversy and believes in standing up for people's rights.
The Workers' Party recognises that there are many issues which are of concern to the people of Cork North Central, including:

The creation of local jobs as a priority

The housing situation afor those on household mortgages and the thousands of people on Cork city and County council waiting lists

The appalling decision to close the Orthopaedic Hospital and the ongoing threat to the Mercy University Hospital

Ted Tynan believes that for the vast majority of people, this election will not only be about issues of local concern - no matter how acute but also this election will be about the economic issues which are affecting almost every household in this country:-

Unemployment

Cutbacks

Emigration

the appalling Bank bailout

Ted Tynan and the Workers' Party offers the people of Cork North Central a socialist alternative to the failed right-wing agenda of the mainstream parties.

...Not just another party, not just another candidate

www.wpcork.org

Vote No.1 - Tynan, Ted

Join our campaign, telephone Ted at (086) 190 8281.

Contact Ted at the above number or by email at tedtynan@gmail.com

Fianna Fáil's pathetic last resort - the Red Scare

Cllr. Ted Tynan

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has responded to an attack on him by Fianna Fáil’s Cllr. Ken O’Flynn in this week’s  Cork Independent newspaper (Nov 11^th).

Councillor Tynan said he regarded Cllr. O’Flynn’s comments as an acknowledgment that Fianna Fáil had been stung by the Workers’ Party over the government’s appalling record on housing and they had resorted to Fianna Fáil’s last refuge, the Red Scare.

“Fianna Fáil is under pressure”, said Cllr. Tynan. “They are getting it in the neck from people over their appalling management of this country and the fact that they have decided to put the interests of bankers, speculators and the super-rich over those of ordinary working people and their families.  I can only say I am bemused that Ken O’Flynn has chosen to launch his attack on the Workers’ Party when his government has allegedly been put on the ropes by the main opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour”.

“Fianna Fáil has always resorted to the ‘Red Scare’ when under pressure from the left.  They used it in the 1930s against Labour when that party was showing some semblance of radicalism.  They used it against Noel Browne and Clann na Poblachta in the ‘50s; they first used it against the Workers’ Party in the 1980s and now the ‘Reds under the bed’ nonsense is being dragged out again.    This kind of claptrap is past its sell-by-date,  just like Fianna Fáil itself and it won’t wash with people who are being bled dry from the cutbacks and incompetence of the present government”.

Cllr. Tynan said he regarded the Fianna Fáil politician’s attack on him as an unintended compliment. “If Fianna Fáil are put out by my criticism of their failures then I take that as a sign that the Workers’ Party is doing its job and providing real opposition instead of the meaningless slanging matches that go on in the Dáil but achieve nothing.   I stand over my record and my party’s long struggle on behalf of ordinary people and for democratic socialist policies that put people before profit.  If Cllr. O’Flynn’s best response to the government’s appalling reign is to resort to worn-out smear tactics then it can only be a sign that this government is on its last legs and is politically, morally and ethically bankrupt”, said the Workers’ Party councillor.

Opposition to Mayoral pact is in defence of democracy

Commenting on Thursday night's (June 24th) election for Lord Mayor of Cork at City Hall, Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan said that comments from the pact candidate Michael O’Connell that he would “take politics out of the Mayoralty” were a total contradiction of the process that would elect Cllr. O’Connell where a three party pact would once again claim the office of Lord Mayor and deny almost one third of councillors their say in the election.

Cllr. Tynan said that it was not politics that needed to be taken out of the office of Lord Mayor but party politics. “The office of Lord Mayor of Cork is a deeply political office and is one the people of Cork are very proud of. One could hardly say that Lord Mayors such as Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence McSwiney were not political when in fact every fibre of their bodies were full of politics but they did not engage in the politics of self-promotion and exclusion of all other points of view”.

“It is a great pity that those members of the pact parties, and indeed some in the media see the nomination of candidates for the position of Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor by those of us outside the pact as some kind of nuisance. We do so in defence of the democracy that people like Mac Curtain and McSwiney fought for. To do otherwise would be a denial of the democratic votes of the thousands of citizens who voted for non-pact candidates”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Cllr. Tynan said he will be supporting the nomination of Independent Councillor Chris O’Leary for Lord Mayor and would propose Cllr. Jonathan O’Brien of Sinn Féin for the position of Deputy Lord Mayor.

New Stadium elsewhere in Docklands is best solution to Páirc Uí Chaoimh dilemma says Tynan

Speaking in advance of Monday night's (Jun 14) City Council vote in relation to the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that a solution must be found that will satisfy the needs of the GAA to expand and the competing need for a major public park for the citizens of Cork.

Cllr. Tynan said he believed that a totally new stadium within the South Docklands area was the best solution and that he would be opposing the proposal that is before the council, but strongly urging the City Manager to do a swap with the GAA for another site within docklands.

The Workers’ Party councillor said, “The GAA’s proposal envisages the demolition in stages of most of the existing Páirc Uí Chaoimh. This will involve considerable disruption to the stadium’s fixtures with inevitable restrictions on crowd capacity and safety issues for several years. I am proposing that an entirely new stadium, incorporating the proposed Centre of Excellence, be built within a few hundred yards of Páirc Uí Chaoimh. This will preserve the proposed amenity park and give the GAA even more space to expand.”, said Cllr. Tynan.

“The City Council will have to accept that the docklands plan is not a Holy Grail. The economy is a very different animal now to what it was when the lofty plans for docklands were drawn up. It is inevitable in my view that the docklands development will have to be scaled down. This gives the council scope to make plenty of space available to the GAA within a puc fada of its historical home. It can be achieved if people are willing to open their minds and move from their entrenched positions”.

Cllr. Tynan said that the Workers’ Party was fully supportive of the GAA’s plans but that the opportunity to give the people of Cork a magnificent new public park close to the city centre might not arise again for generations. Both of these plans could be achieved if people were prepared to think outside the box and consider his proposal.

EU General inspects his troops in Collins Barracks

Earlier this week (30/3/2010) we had the unnerving spectacle of a Brigadier General from the EU Nordic Battlegroup inspecting Irish troops in Collins Barracks, Cork City. Brigadier General Jan Stephan Andersson of the Swedish Army inspected the troops, who will be under his command for military exercises in Sweden later this year for what was referred to in a communiqué as "warfare training".

I raised this issue because it runs contrary to what we were told during the Lisbon Treaty referndums (1 and 2). When the formation of EU Battlegroups was raised by the Workers Party and others during the referendum and during the 2 Nice Treaty referendums, we were once again accused of scaremongering and people were reassured that these Battlegroups were purely for humanitarian missions. Now I have to wonder where does "warfare training" fit in to humanitarianism? What type of warfare are these Irish troops to be trained in? Now that the Lisbon referendum has been won by the government - on its second outing - the smoke is beginning to clear and the EU army that was so vehemently denied, is taking shape before our eyes. We are still being told that Irish neutrality is secure. The "triple lock" mechanism will see to that but then there's Brigadier Andersson as bold as brass inspecting troops up in Collins Barracks which was wrested from the control of another empire just 90 years ago.

It is even more ironic when we see that this is Easter Week and marks the 94th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising when a small band of Irishmen and women looked the British Empire in the face and flew the flag of freedom. This weekend political parties of all shades will mark that anniversary. No doubt Fianna Fáil will traipse into Arbour Hill at some stage and pay mealy-mouthed homage to that rebellion but it is worth recalling what that the Easter Proclamation of 1916 said:-

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty: six times during the past three hundred years[2] they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and its exaltation among the nations.

Quite clearly our neutrality and national sovereignty continue to be sold while we are driven ever deeper into the mire of the EU / New World Order that gives us EU armies and the likes of NAMA to save the bankers while ordinary workers and their families are thrown to the wolves.

The Workers Party will hold its own Easter 1916 commemoration on Easter Sunday. There will be no sharp suits or PR agencies feeding out a steady flow of media-speak. We will gather at the Republican Plot in St. Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork where the graves of patriots like Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney and many others are; where comrades like John Joe Kavanagh and Martin O'Leary lie buried. Did any of them really give their lives so that we could be ruled by an unaccountable bureaucratic elite in Brussels - or a bosses party in Dublin for that matter? I don't think so.

The Workers Party commemoration in Cork will be addressed by veteran socialist republican Sean Garland who will speak about issues relevant to working people and their families today. The Easter Proclamation will be read with pride by Donal O'Driscoll and we will lay wreaths on the graves of fallen comrades. The ceremony will commence at 12 Noon sharp and all are welcome

Tynan praises council staff, emergency services for flood response

Councillor Ted Tynan has praised Cork City Council staff and the emergency services for their efforts in response to the flooding crisis in the city.

The Workers’ Party councillor said that staff at all levels had worked tirelessly to deal with the crisis and many of them had stayed at their posts for two or three days with no more than a few hours sleep. He said that the response proved the worth of public service workers and contradicted much recent negative comment on the public service.

“Over the past few days I have travelled to various locations around the city, especially around Mayfield and the North East Ward, and have seen City Council workers doing Trojan work. They have been faced with an extremely difficult situation but have coped very well with it. I would like to thank all those involved including council workers, the gardaí, fire and other emergency services and individuals who have volunteered to help. It was truly a team effort by all concerned”, said Cllr. Tynan.

“This should give advocates of privatisation plenty of food for thought. I have no doubt if these were privatised services we would not have had the same level of response. The public service has stepped up to the mark in a severe emergency and comes out with full marks for dedication, effort and determination”, he declared.

Tax the Greedy, not the Needy - No to Water Charges

The word is out, the Commission on Taxation, set up by the government over 18 months ago to overhaul this country's taxation system, is recommending further stealth taxes on ordinary workers and their families including the introduction of water charges, a tax on the family home and taxation of Child Benefit (Children's Allowance).

The terms of reference of the Commission on Taxation were deliberately framed in such a way as to prevent it dealing with probably the most glaring problems of the Irish taxation system - it was not allowed to consider increasing Corporation Tax on big business and was advised not to actually increase the overall tax take despite the fact that billions of euro of profits are being made in this country by those not paying their fair share of tax.

It should be no surprise that this QUANGO came up with an anti-worker and anti-family report. No less than 11 of the 16 members of the Commission (appointed by the Fianna Fáil / Green mudguard government) are from the business community and I don't mean your local shop but big business, very big business. There was one lone representative on the commission from the trade union movement and another token member from the voluntary sector. Add in a few right-wing economists and it becomes clear that this commission was rigged from the outset to come up with the government's favoured outcome - just like the so-called Bord Snip.

The Workers Party is very clear on the question of water charges. Like refuse charges they are a form ouf double taxation. If you are a PAYE worker or ever buy anything in this country you are already contributing to the funding of local government. You pay into local government when you pay for your electricity, buy a newspaper or a book and when you buy a so-called luxury item like a television or a fridge. When rates were abolished almost 30 years ago the shortfall was made up by increases in PAYE and VAT - increases which were never abolished.

Let's be clear about this - these proposals, coupled with the cutbacks proposed in the McCarthy Report and the levies already imposed in last year's budget and mini-budget, will mean the government plans to take up to €5,000 per annum from your pay packet if you are a PAYE worker and will further penalise you if you are unfortunate enough to be unemployed, on a small pension or in the low paid category.

In the coming months there will be a battle on Cork City Council in relation to the annual Estimates. It is now clear that further massive cutbacks in the council's services are to be made while increases in rents and refuse charges are definitely on the cards. The Workers Party will not be bullied into supporting these measures and we will not support any budget for the city which underfunds basic services, cuts jobs or contains service charges in any shape or form.

Have no doubt about it, the party and others opposing the Estimates are going to come under massive attack from the establishment parties for our stand. Fine Gael, Labour and possibly others will line up behind Fianna Fáil and further slash already curtailed services such as housing maintenance, road repair, parks, libraries and other services which are essential to this city. They will try to turn the blame back on us and will claim that it is our fault that jobs will be lost and the council will be abolished if the Estimates are defeated. This is simply a lie. We all know why 91 jobs have already been lost in the City Council and why housing and housing maintenance have ground to a halt. This is 100% down to the policies of the present government and the government in waiting of FG / Labour (which are almost identical anyway). Ordinary workers and their families are to be made pay for the sheer greed and reckless trading of banks and building speculators.

We have seen the state and the courts bend over backwards to prevent the Carroll Group from being liquidated while at the same time people in trouble with their mortgages are being hounded and having their homes repossessed by the same banks. The government has agreed to a bank bailout which potentially puts the state at the risk of losing up to €100 Billion - that's right €100,000,000,000 of your hard earned money. Fine Gael and Labour only disagree on the finer details but still support the concept of aiding the banks with vast amounts of taxpayer's money.

The battle lines are drawn. Workers and their families are now under sustained attack from the government, the banks, sections of the media and international capitalism as never before. This alone is reason enough to reject the Lisbon Treaty at the forthcoming referendum which is the second attempt - á la carte democracy where you can re-run a referendum if you don't like the first result. It is in the interests of workers and the poor to firmly reject this treaty which further enslaves working people, finally ditches our neutrality and puts in place another building block towards an EU superstate. Vote No to the Lisbon Treaty on October 2nd.

Tenant's rights must be protected

Cork Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has strongly condemned a demand from the newly created National Assets Management Agency for changes in the law which would dilute the rights of long term tenants living in properties which are taken into NAMA’s ownership.

Cllr. Tynan was reacting to a report in this morning’s Irish Examiner in which an unnamed government spokesman is quoted as calling for changes to the Landlord & Tenant (Amendment) Act 1980 which gives long term tenants the right to extend their leases for up to 35 years.

The Workers’ Party councillor said that the present protections and rights available to tenants had been hard fought for and won after many decades of struggle and campaigning by tenants organisations and should not be lightly taken away. He also expressed concern that if these rights could be waived on behalf of NAMA, then there would be demands by landlords for them to be taken away altogether.

“The struggle for fixity of tenure is something which has been fought for as far back as the Land War of the 1880s though Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell and right through to the more recent campaigns of the Housing Action Committees of the 1960s. The economic crisis which has been caused by banks and property speculators, who make up a fair percentage of the landlords in this country, is no excuse for diluting tenants rights”, said Cllr. Tynan.

“I am calling on all public representatives to vigorously oppose any watering down of tenant’s rights at the behest of NAMA, builders or the financial institutions”, said Cllr. Tynan.



Footnote: Ted Tynan was a committee member of the Cork Housing Action Campaign in the late 1960s and also played a leading part in the campaigns of the Mayfield Tenants Association and the Joint Council of Cork Tenants’ Associations during the 1970s.

CUT IN TEACHER NUMBERS SABOTAGES CHILDREN’S EDUCATION

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that cuts in the number of teachers in Ireland’s schools in the forthcoming year will effectively sabotage the education of thousands of children and young people.

Reacting to claims by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland that cuts will mean up to 3,600 fewer teachers in second level schools this autumn as compared with last year, Cllr. Tynan said that this would have a devastating effect on schools and pupils and would particularly cause even more educational disadvantage in schools which are already under-resourced and in special needs cases in particular.

The Workers’ Party councillor rejected the Department of Education’s response to the teacher’s union figures, saying that the department was trying to hide behind a smokescreen about numbers when it was clear even by the department’s own figures that there would be significantly fewer teachers in schools this coming term.

“This massive cut in the numbers of teachers in our schools is another cutback resulting from the banking bailout and NAMA. Children are being made to suffer because the government is more interested in saving the skins of greedy bankers and property speculators who lost the run of themselves in the casino style property boom. The result is that thousands of children will fall through the cracks and suffer educational disadvantage which will last for their entire lifetime. This puts many working class people at an even greater disadvantage because it is the most vulnerable as usual who will bear the brunt of these vicious cutbacks”, said Councillor Tynan.

Eight week council break unnacceptable

Tomorrow's meeting of Cork City Council (13th July) will be its last for eight weeks until it reconvenes on Monday, 14th September, just 2 days before the Dáil returns from its 9 week break.

This is simply not acceptable, particularly at a time when the council is experiencing serious cuts in its budget and a shortfall of at least €2 million in its budget and possibly a much greater shortfall next year. Already 91 temporary and short term staff have been left go and there is a total embargo on recruitment. In addition to this there are threats of cuts in a wide range of council services.

Despite this, tomorrow's City Council meeting will be proposing to send a number of councillors to conferences around the country and in my view and that of the Workers Party this is totally unacceptable and I will be opposing this. It is not justified when the council cannot respond adequately to the demand for services such as housing maintenance. I would also question the value of most, if not all of these conferences.

In addition to this, I have proposed a motion opposing the closure of St. Mary's Road Library in Gurranabraher and the City Council's plan to move the library to a rented premises in Blackpool Shopping Centre. The current premises is owned by the City Council; the proposed one will incur rent in the region of €100,000 payable to one of Cork's wealthiest businessmen, an individual who within the last year was forced to pay over €1.4 million to the Revenue Commissioners arising out of the inquiry into the Ansbacher Accounts tax evasion scam. Is it right that the City Council should pay half a million Euro to this man over the lifetime of this council when it is suffering its greatest financial crisis ever? I think not.

I also have tabled a motion calling for the provision of street nameplates at Silversprings Lawn and Silversprings Court which do not have nameplates despite having being built almost 30 years ago.

Another motion which I am hoping will come up is calling on the City Council to make boarded up corporation houses ready and available for allocation to people on the council's waiting list. It is totally unacceptable that at a time when there are 5,000 people on the City Council's housing waiting list that we have hundreds of houses and flats boarded up. Not only are these houses and flats unsightly but they attract anti-social elements into an area and illegal dumping. This is an issue that I along with my Workers Party fellow candidates Jackie Connolly and Mick Crowley raised during last month's local elections and we intend to follow through on the matter as a matter of urgency.

One motion I have proposed is sure to cause controversy and I make no apologies for that. It is a call for an inquiry into the Corrib Gas Project. Although this is far away in County Mayo it does have relevance to the people of Cork because the Irish taxpayers are being denied billions of Euro of revenue as a result of a dirty deal done by the former Fianna Fáil government minister Ray Burke with the Shell Oil corporation (Anglo Dutch Shell) and other oil and gas companies to pump gas ashore and refine it at Bellanaboy in Co. Mayo. The state, on behalf of the Irish people, should have got billions of Euro for this gas but instead it was practically given away to Shell and the company have been allowed bring it ashore via a very high pressure gas pipeline which pumps gas at an extraordinarly high pressure of 345 Bar (compared to a maximum of 70 Bar at Kinsale Head gasfield) across boggy land in an area where there have been several major landslides over the past decade.

Shell have been facilitated in this by the granting of a compulsory purchase order allowing them to put their pipeline through the property of local families (mostly small farmers and fishermen) and dangerously close to many of their homes. This small community has opposed the pipeline out of genuine concern for the safety of themselves and their families. They have used non-violent resistance to try and prevent the destruction of their beaches, bogs and farms. Despite being a designated area of special environmental interest, the project is being forced through with the help of up to 300 gardaí, the Irish Navy and up to 160 private security personnel. There is a serious question mark hanging over the largest of these private security companies arising from an incident in which two of its employees, both of whom had been employed at the Corrib Gas site, were shot dead in Bolivia and were accused by the government of that country of being involved in an attempted Coup d'etat. While the book is still open on that case, there are very serious questions arising from it which link directly to Corrib and the type of people being recruited for security duty by Shell's protectors.

Five local men from the Rossport were jailed for 90 days and many others have been arrested. There are so many incidents related to this debacle that it would take up too much space here to relate but you can read much more on the Shell to Sea website at www.shelltosea.com or on Indymedia www.indymedia.ie


Finally, while the City Council may not be meeting until September 14th, I will continue to be available to consitutents and anyone who may wish to raise an issue of concern with me. As always I can be contacted on my mobile (086) 190 8281 or by e-mail at tedtynan@gmail.com

A Message from Ted Tynan

The local elections which take place on June 5th come at a time of unprecedented economic and social crisis in Ireland. The country has been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by speculators developers and most of all the banks and political establishment parties. We have had 12 years of continuous government by Fianna Fáil and the current Fianna Fáil / Green Party coalition has continued to feed a culture of of corruption at the highest levels of Irish society.

At the same time the health service, education and other essential services and those who depend on them have suffered greatly. Now that the crisis is biting hard it is once again the most vulnerable who are being told to take the pain while the super-rich get off scot free and are even rewarded for their theft of Irish resources.

Locally in Cork we have growing unemployment, a housing crisis with 5,000 families on the City Council waiting list while hundreds of corporation houses lie idle and often vandalised. Official statistics show that even at the height of the Celtic Tiger there continued to be an unemployment crisis in the Mayfield area. Now that the economy is in crisis, local unemployment in this area has sky-rocketed. There is a better way.

As a candidate in the local elections for the Workers Party, I will be demanding the following:-

• A major programme of genuinely affordable houses and an end to the boarding up of houses. Instead they should be immediately brought up to standard and allocated to those on the City Council's housing waiting list.


• An end to cuts in education, health and disability services.


• Proper local amentities, particularly for young people, and the preservation of important green spaces such as the Glen Park and river valley, playing field at Tinker's Cross and the Tank Field.


• Mobile phone masts must be kept a safe distance from homes, schools and people's workplaces.


• Greater efforts to deal with an prevent Anti-Social Behaviour and more effort into community policing.


• An end to the junket culture at City Hall, with vital resources going to meet the needs of the city and its people, not developers and speculators.

My record of opposition to Service Charges is well known in this area. I will continue to oppose this unjust form of double taxation of PAYE workers and will actively fight against the re-introduction of water charges and privatisation of services.

As a Workers Party candidate and a socialist I stand for workers and their families, including retired and unemployed workers and young people.

Do you require help with a problem related to housing, your rights and entitlements or local issues in the North East Ward?

Please Contact me at:

Telephone: 4503481 (home) / (086) 1908281 (mobile)

E-mail: tedtynan@gmail.com

If you would like to help out in my election campaign or to join the Workers Party please contact me at the above numbers or my Director of Elections, Sean McCarthy on (086) 8360503.

Visit the Workers Party website www.workerspartyireland.net