Workers Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that government cutbacks will seriously affect Cork City Council services and that the allocation from central government to the local authority it totally inadequate.
Cllr. Tynan was speaking in advance of tonight’s meeting of the City Council which will vote on the financial Estimates for the coming 12 months. The Workers’ Party councillor will be voting against the Estimates because they contain domestic refuse charges and because he considers the central allocation as totally inadequate.
“The Minister for the Environment expects councillors to perform a ‘loaves & fishes’ miracle with funding for the city council cut by a further €7 million this year. Already the council has lost in the region of 140 staff through a combination of layoffs of temporary staff and non-replacement of permanent staff. Despite the best efforts of a dedicated staff this is inevitably leading to cuts in services in the area of housing maintenance, roads and other areas”, said Cllr.Tynan.
The Workers Party councillor has called for a more drastic cut in the Lord Mayor’s salary and allowances demanding that instead of an €8,000 cut to €94,000 per annum the mayoral salary should be cut to equal the average industrial wage of €32,000. He is also calling for a complete embargo on conference travel by councillors both within the country and abroad.
“Despite the most serious financial crisis in the city’s modern history, we still have dozens of councillors from the three party pact of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour travelling to conferences in every corner of the country. Some councillors have attended multiple conferences and I can see no benefit whatsoever to the city or the city council of such conferences which are little more than junkets. It is time to call a halt to them”, said Cllr. Tynan.
Monday, 21 December 2009
Thursday, 10 December 2009
A Diabolical Budget
Cllr. Ted Tynan has described Wednesday's budget as diabolical and utterly perverse, saying it targets working class people and only working class people with a vicious round of cutbacks in their incomes and in public services.
Cllr. Tynan said that Minister Brian Lenihan’s budget was drafted to an agenda set down by IBEC and big business and that the minister had bent over backwards to grant their demands while tightening the thumbscrews on working people, the poor and their families.
"The reduction in excise duty on alcohol and the car scrappage deal is an affront to society. This budget will force some people to cut back on food and home heating. It is a perverse government indeed which can cut child allowance but give an effective subsidy to the drinks industry and the motor trade".
"Nowhere in this budget do we see any effort to seriously tax the ostentatious wealth that is still being flashed around by the moneyed elite in this society, the one percent who hold one-fifth of this country's wealth. Nor has any effort been made to reform the banks as part of the NAMA process. Having gambled away billions they have been given a massive top-up which has been raised by bleeding workers dry and throwing the most vulnerable people to the wolves”, said Cllr. Tynan.
"This is a budget which makes historic figures like Richie Ryan and Margaret Thatcher seem benevolent. It is a slash-and-burn budget which has reduced the most marginalised people in society, not just to poverty, but to abject poverty. The decision to slash Jobseekers payments for young people and cut it for everyone else, in addition to the cut in child benefit is an outright attack on the poor. Not one single job will be created as a result of this budget, but still we have handouts to businesses in the name of so-called competition”.
“In short Minister Lenihan’s budget is an abomination. It is the product of a government which has been bought by big business but paid dearly for by ordinary workers and their families. It is a government with no morals, no mandate and no shame”, said Councillor Tynan
Cllr. Tynan said that Minister Brian Lenihan’s budget was drafted to an agenda set down by IBEC and big business and that the minister had bent over backwards to grant their demands while tightening the thumbscrews on working people, the poor and their families.
"The reduction in excise duty on alcohol and the car scrappage deal is an affront to society. This budget will force some people to cut back on food and home heating. It is a perverse government indeed which can cut child allowance but give an effective subsidy to the drinks industry and the motor trade".
"Nowhere in this budget do we see any effort to seriously tax the ostentatious wealth that is still being flashed around by the moneyed elite in this society, the one percent who hold one-fifth of this country's wealth. Nor has any effort been made to reform the banks as part of the NAMA process. Having gambled away billions they have been given a massive top-up which has been raised by bleeding workers dry and throwing the most vulnerable people to the wolves”, said Cllr. Tynan.
"This is a budget which makes historic figures like Richie Ryan and Margaret Thatcher seem benevolent. It is a slash-and-burn budget which has reduced the most marginalised people in society, not just to poverty, but to abject poverty. The decision to slash Jobseekers payments for young people and cut it for everyone else, in addition to the cut in child benefit is an outright attack on the poor. Not one single job will be created as a result of this budget, but still we have handouts to businesses in the name of so-called competition”.
“In short Minister Lenihan’s budget is an abomination. It is the product of a government which has been bought by big business but paid dearly for by ordinary workers and their families. It is a government with no morals, no mandate and no shame”, said Councillor Tynan
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
WAS QUAY WALL DAMAGED BY MECHANICAL DIGGER?
Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan last night asked City Manager as to whether the quay wall beside the Mercy Hospital may have been damaged by a mechanical digger weeks before the wall collapsed in the recent severe weather.
Speaking at a meeting of Cork City Council which was dominated by the recent flooding crisis, Cllr. Tynan says that he had seen photographs showing a large mechanised excavator (traxcavator) working at the same spot where the wall was to collapse early on the 20th November at the height of the heavy rain and high tides. He has been informed that large amounts of stone, possibly old cobblestones, was removed from the River Lee at Grenville Place around a month before the wall collapsed. His source and a number of others he spoke to say that the excavator’s bucket hit off the quay wall on several occasions.
Cllr. Tynan has tabled a series of questions to the City Manager, Mr. Joe Gavin, in an attempt to find out if the machine in question could possibly have damaged the quay wall and to ascertain why it was removing this material in the first place.
“The recent floods have had a devastating effect on parts of the city centre around the Marsh area. It is estimated that damage at the Mercy Hospital alone was in the order of €2 million and the hospital was almost put out of action. We need to find out why this happened and if there is any connection between the removal of the stone and the wall’s collapse. I haved asked the City Manager tonight to investigate the reports and give his opinion on the matter”, said Cllr. Tynan.
Photos shown were taken with a cameraphone on 19th October - one month before the wall collapsed, and show the traxcavator machine working at Grenville Place.
Monday, 23 November 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
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.
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.
Thursday, 13 August 2009
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.
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.
Friday, 7 August 2009
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.
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.
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