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.

Fás - New Name, Same Old Schemes

Cllr. Ted Tynan has said that the rebranding of the national training and employment agency Fás as SOLAS would be meaningless to the unemployed and those seeking to improve their work prospects unless there was a fundamental change in emphasis and a real commitment to job creation.

The Cork Workers Party Councillor said one only had to look at the Fás website on any day and see that two-thirds of the positions on offer consist of unpaid work placements, CE schemes and the recently launched Internship placements.  Unless a real job-creation programme was put in place, the new agency would merely be a sticking-plaster to cover up mass unemployment, he said.

“This is not the first time the state training and employment agency has been rebranded”, said Ted.  “In the 1980s there were two separate agencies known as AnCo and National Manpower which were merged to become Fás but there was no fundamental change.  It was merely a change of the signs over the door and the corporate stationery. The same will happen with the new agency SOLAS and the rebranding will convince nobody unless real change is seen to be taking place”.

“While an increased role for the VECs in the training element of the new agency is to be welcomed, it takes place against a contraction in the number of VECs and without any specific commitment to funding for them which has been cut in recent years”

“What is needed is not a name-change for Fás,  but a commitment to the creation of real jobs with proper pay and conditions, real training based on sound principles, and a thorough shake-up at the top which will ensure that sleaze such as that exposed some years ago can never occur again through transparency and accountability at all levels in the organisation.  We shall wait and see if SOLAS lives up to this but the omens are not good from a government which has, in its first six months, been found to be venal, dismissive and dishonest”, said Councillor 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.

"Hands off the State Pension" Tynan warns Ó Cuiv

Cllr. Ted Tynan has condemned comments of Social Welfare Minister Eamon Ó Cuiv in which the Minister hinted that the State Pension (formerly known as the Old Age Pension) might be cut in the next Budget.

Cllr. Tynan said that the Minister would find himself faced with the wrath of pensioners if he attempted to interfere with a right people had worked all their lives to earn and the Workers Party described claims about wealthy people on State Pensions as a "red herring".

The State Pension is a means-tested payment. People who have paid in via their PRSI or stamps during their working lives may qualify for a Contributory Pension but the Non-Contributory Pension is subjected to a rigorous means test. The whole talk about people with wealth getting the State Pension is nothing other than a diversion and is a bit rich coming from a government that claimed it was unable to cut the massive pensions paid to judges and the golden handshakes given to criminal bankers.

"The Pension is a meagre enough payment and does not even make ends meet for people, particularly during Winter when they have to spend a large part of their pension on fuel in order to keep warm. In the harsh winter just gone by many elderly people, and indeed other people on welfare or low pay, ran up large bills for heating because it was literally a matter of life or death for them. Eamon Ó Cuiv, a grandson of Éamon De Valera, should know how dangerous it is to try and cut the pension - after all his grandfather got elected Taoiseach for the first time after a predecessor, Ernest Blythe took a shilling off the Old Age Pension. Blythe later lost his seat. Mr. Ó Cuiv should worry about his if he does the same", said Cllr. Tynan.

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

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.