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.

Budget a recipe for exploitation and pain says Tynan

Workers Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that Tuesday's Budget is a recipe for exploitation and pain which is completely loaded in favour of the wealthy and contemptuous of the young, the old and the vulnerable.

Cllr. Tynan said that the cuts in the budget were some of the meanest yet and would heap misery on hardship for families and those whose needs were greatest.  He said the 66% increase in  prescription charges for medical card holders, the scrapping of the free telephone allowance for the elderly and of the once-off bereavement grant were amongst the most vicious cuts but he felt that many more hidden cuts would emerge over the next few days.

“This is far from being a jobs budget” said Cllr Tynan, “in fact the budget is devoid of a job creation strategy.  Instead the coalition’s plan is to starve the unemployed and particularly the young into emigrating or taking up underpaid and grossly exploitative work under the worst possible terms and conditions.  In this centenary year of the 1913 Lockout employers are rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of cowed workers and a silenced trade union movement”

Councillor Tynan concluded by singling out the Labour Party for a stinging rebuke. “Yesterday the Labour Party threw its own 2011 election manifesto into the bonfire. Gone is the commitment to fairness, gone is their promise of a universal insurance-based health system and gone is their last shred of credibility.  If they have any remaining self-respect then they too should depart the scene sooner rather than later”, said Cllr. Tynan.

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.

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.

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.

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