Fight the Household Charge - Don't Pay!

Workers Party Councillor Ted Tynan (Cork) has called for massive and determined resistance against the new household charge that was agreed by the Fine Gael / Labour government recently.

Cllr. Tynan said that people should not be tricked by the €100 per annum charge and that this apparently low level was merely a sweetener for the Labour Party grassroots.  Past experience showed, he said, that once the principle of such charges is established they invariably increase to several times that amount in a short period.

“Make no mistake about it”, said Cllr. Tynan, “this is a Trojan Horse for water charges which may or may not be based on metering.  It is also a precursor to the privatisation of water and other local authority services.  The Workers Party is totally opposed to this form of double taxation and will work with others in mounting a massive campaign of resistance against this unjust charge.  This Trojan Horse charge should be smashed from its inception and we urge people not to pay the household charge and to make it uncollectable.”

Tynan alams ESB as "callous and uncaring" on disconnections

Cork North Central Workers’ Party candidate, Cllr. Ted Tynan has said that his canvassing team is coming across a significant number of family homes which have been disconnected by the ESB recently and he has described the electricity supplier’s actions as “callous and uncaring commerciality”.

Cllr. Tynan was speaking this morning (Sunday) after a meeting of Workers’ Party canvassers in Gurranabraher.  He said that several of his team had reported coming across families whose electricity supply had been cut off because of problems paying off large bills that had been accumulated during the recent and ongoing cold weather.

“People do not risk having their electricity supply disconnected unless they are in dire trouble with their family finances”, said Cllr. Tynan.  “As the ESB is being prepared by the government for eventual privatisation, the company is becoming more and more uncaring and purely commercial decisions are being taken with little consideration for the consequences these will have on families who will go without heat, light and cooking as a result”, he said.

Cllr. Tynan said that the ESB’s decision to spend €8 million this year on changing its name to ‘Electric Ireland” should be scrapped and the money allocated instead to a hardship fund for customers who are genuinely in trouble with their accounts.

Candidates should unite behind Mercy & Orthopaedic Hospitals

Cork North Central Workers’ Party candidate, Councillor Ted Tynan, has said that election candidates in the constituency should fight for the retention and development of the existing Mercy & Orthopaedic Hospitals instead of rowing over a hospital that may never be built.

Cllr. Tynan said that the spat between Labour and Fine Gael candidates over the location of a possible new hospital was academic as there are two hospitals of long standing in the city which are under threat.  He said that candidates were debating the merits of two sites which may never be developed instead of fighting to keep the Mercy & Orthopaedic hospitals fully open.

“The people of Cork, and of Cork North Central in particular, want to keep the hospital services that they have and which have served them well over many, many years.    They want to see those hospitals being modernised and improved and are not interested in a political circus over what might happen when the current recession is over, which is likely to be a very long time.  There is plenty of room to build on the Orthopaedic site but it will be lost to developers if people don’t stand together now and fight for it”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Pharmacies profiteering on coeliac sufferers says Tynan

Cork North Central Workers’ Party candidate, Councillor Ted Tynan, has accused chemists of blatant profiteering on the sale of special food products for coeliacs and others.

Cllr. Tynan was responding to comments from the Irish Pharmacists Union which had said it had no control over its members charging high prices for gluten-free foods sold in pharmacies around the country.

The Workers’ Party candidate has said that with some chemists charging up to €7.50 for a packet of gluten-free pasta and similarly high prices for gluten-free bread products it was time for the government to put a price control on such products.

“Gluten Free foods are not a luxury for coeliacs.  If they eat bread and other foods that contain gluten then they become ill. It is items such as this and others which are essential for  those who are affected that profiteering takes place.   Given the response of the Irish Pharmacists Union and individual pharmacists there is a strong case for the introduction of a maximum price order for such products”, 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.

Government has abandoned another generation of Irish men and women

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that the Fianna Fáil / Green Party had decided to abandon another generation of young Irish people to the dead end of emigration and mass unemployment in order to save corrupt banking institutions and Fianna Fáil’s friends in big business.

Cllr. Tynan was speaking at the AGM of the party in the Cork Region in the city, saying that the unprecedented economic growth of the 1990s had been squandered and was now being poured into a black hole created by the greed of bankers and speculators.

“The Irish state as we know it is now approaching 100 years in existence. In that time it has relied heavily on emigration as a safety valve because of the abject failure of the native capitalist class to create jobs. Hundreds of thousands of bright young Irish men and women had to take the boat to Britain, the United States or further afield to find work.

The lofty ideals of ‘cherishing all of the children of the nation’ have remained just that – unachieved pipe dreams”, said Cllr. Tynan. “We have already seen tens of billions of Euro poured down the drain to keep the basket-case bank that is Anglo Irish afloat and many more billions into the other banks. Meanwhile thousands are once again emigrating while the number of unemployed approaches half a million"

"At the same time", said Cllr. Tynan, "we have more hospitals closing or under threat – including the Orthopaedic, the Mercy, Bantry General, Mallow and Cobh in this county alone. What kind of nation saves banks that are rotten and allows citizens who are ill to suffer and perhaps die for want of treatment? Certainly not a democracy and that is why at the next election the present government parties must be thrown from power, not just for a term in opposition, but forever".