Tynan welcomes Boherboy / Ashmount traffic plans

Councillor Ted Tynan has welcomed plans by Cork City Council for traffic calming and road safety measures at Boherboy Road and at its junction with Ashmount estate.

Cllr. Tynan, who has being calling for these measures for several years, said that the plan would greatly contribute to road safety in the area but said that drivers had a responsibility also to slow down and take care in what is a residential area.

Boherboy / Ashmount traffic plans

“The plans drawn up by the Roads Design Division at City Council include the installation of round-top ramps at two points on Boherboy Road – one up from the Silversprings Road end entrance and the other at the junction with Ashmount.  The plan will also involve the re-alignment of the road near Ashmount to improve driver visibility”.

Councillor Tynan has also called on the council to take a look at Silverheights Road with a view to making it safer.

Meanwhile Cllr. Tynan has also called on Cork City Council to develop an enclosed green area at Ashmount, Mayfield and turn it into a children's play area.

 

The Workers Party councillor called on Cork City Council to take charge of the enclosed green area known locally as “the cage” and to develop it into a children’s playground.  “This large enclosure, which was the location of the site office during the building of Ashmount, has been handed over to the council in trust for the local community by the former developer, it should now be developed to provide suitable play area for the children of the area", said Cllr. Tynan.

 "This is an ideal location for a playground in an area where it is needed and I have submitted a motion to Cork City council calling for this to be done as soon as possible”,  said Cllr. Tynan

Government will face tougher battle on Water Charges

Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan has said that the political campaign against the property tax will continue but that the main focus now must necessarily move to defeating the Water Tax, a battle which, he said, is likely to include non-violent civil disobedience.

Councillor Tynan

Councillor Tynan said that while the mass non-payment campaign in relation to the Local Property Tax had been stymied by the involvement of Revenue, the political campaign would continue.  “The vast majority of people who have paid the Property Tax, whether directly or through the intervention of Revenue, have done so under duress.  Hundreds of thousands of people are seething with anger at this and the issue will not go away”, he said.

“The real battle ahead”, said Cllr. Tynan, “is against the Water Charges which, regardless of what the government says, is a prelude to privatisation and ever higher charges.  The collection of water charges presents the government with a whole minefield of hurdles which did not exist in relation to the Property Tax.  Behind each of those hurdles will be people resisting the water charges.  The first hurdle will be the installation of water meters and that battle is about to begin. It may have got off to a quiet start in Maynooth but I predict it will not stay quiet for long”.

“Water must never be turned into a commodity to be bought and sold for profit.  It is fundamental to human life and essential to human hygiene and public health. It is the last frontier and while the government may be smug about the Property Tax they will soon learn that the anger of the people has not gone away.  This battle isn’t over, it has merely entered into a new phase”, 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

 

 

Tynan condemns graffiti attack on Republican Plot

Cork's Republican Plot

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has condemned as “disgusting” a wholesale graffiti attack on headstones and other monuments at the Republican Plot at Cork's St. Finbarr’s Cemetery over the past few days.

Cllr. Tynan said that the attack was sickening, particularly coming just 48 hours or so before commemorations there of the Easter 1916 Rising. A large number of graves in the plot and a number of headstones of republicans outside the plot were found to be covered in graffiti including swastikas.

“This weekend, the 97th anniversary of the 1916 Rising will be remembered with pride and respect. To think that the men and women who sacrificed their lives for this country could be treated with such utter contempt is disgusting. The fact that only the graves in the Republican plot and of prominent republicans buried nearby have been covered with graffiti suggest that they were deliberately targeted”, said Cllr. Tynan.

He said that it was hoped the graffiti could be removed before Sunday’s Easter events which include the Workers’ Party commemoration at the Republican Plot which takes place at 12 noon.

When the people are ignored, they are right to protest

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that last night’s (Jan 28th) protest by anti-household charge and property tax protesters was completely justified because councillors from the major parties have consistently supported austerity and the imposition of unfair charges on working people and their families.

Cllr. Tynan, who called for a referendum on the banking bailout,  said that those councillors who had been most outspoken in condemning last night’s protest were bandying about words such as democracy and mandates when in fact they were supporting policies which were totally anti-democratic.

 

“It is grossly hypocritical for councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party to lecture others about democracy when they have collectively imposed and maintained the strictures of the Troika in order to bail out insolvent banks and prop up the EU and the Euro project”, he said.

Cllr. Tynan has said that he intends to put the commitment of establishment councillors to the test by putting down a motion to the council demanding a referendum, even at this late stage on the banking bailout which had never been put to the people.

“The ordinary people of this country have been too quiet.   Councillors and others are getting all hot and bothered because people are standing up for once and making their voices heard.   They expect people to sit like spectators at a tennis match as councillors vote for more cuts in services, rent increases and make decisions which impact on people’s lives.  Democracy is not just a word, it means ‘rule of the people’ and if the people are consistently ignored then they must reassert that democracy”, said Cllr. Tynan

Workers' Party (Cork) Christmas Draw 2012

Winners in Workers' Party, Cork Region, Christmas Draw 2012.


Prize                         Ticket No.                                         Winner

1st	1006	Anne Hales, Bandon
2nd	0954	Len McCarthy, Ballinspittle
3rd	1690	Roy Keating, Ballyphehane
4th	1500	Josephine Power, Mayfield
5th	0082	Sean Crowley, c/o Three Horseshoes Bar
6th	0676	Owen O'Sullivan, Ballinure
7th	0927	Eileen McCarthy, Ballyphehane
8th	1448	Aaron Sherin, Mayfield
9th	0166	Pat Manning, c/o, Sean Crowley
10th	2081	W. Murphy, c/o, Mick Crowley
11th	1175	Nina Ahern, Clonakilty
12th	2067	Pete, c/o, Mick Crowley
13th	1691	Maura Keating, Ballyphehane
14th	0268	Sean Tynan, c/o, Ted Tyan
15th	2209	Frances O'Neill, Knocknaheeny
16th	2212	M. O'Neill, Knocknaheeny
17th	1682	Eryn Keating, c/o, Roy Keating
18th	1900	Josh Murphy, c/o, Mick Crowley
19th	1003	Mary Hales, Bandon
20th	0440	Billy Kiely, c/o, Ted Tynan

All winners will be notified. The Cork Regional Council of the Workers' Party would like to thank all our ticket sellers, buyers and prize donors. Seasons greetings and many thanks.

James Connolly Rolling in His Grave

I was stunned by Labour Party Minister Sean Sherlock's response on the front page of the Echo (Dec 14th) to comments that James Connolly would be rolling in his grave over the policies of the current government. Minister Sherlock was quoted as saying that 'I sometimes think those invoking James Connolly have not read his works. James Connolly was first and foremost a patriot'. As a reader of Connolly myself, I wonder which works in particular Minister Sherlock could be referring to. It certainly could not be the article published in Workers' Republic in 1900 which states clearly Connolly's position on so-called patriotism. Let me refresh the Minister's memory: 

'Ireland without her people is nothing to me, and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for "Ireland", and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation wrought upon the people of Ireland, aye, wrought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is, in my opinion, a fraud and a liar'.

The government of which Minister Sherlock is a part has certainly wrought its fair share of suffering, shame and degradation on the people of this country with its recent budget, which has featured cuts to Child Benefit and the Respite Care Grant and a host of other regressive policies. The most vulnerable in our society are bearing the brunt of an economic program of austerity that has been designed and imposed by those who are safely protected by large salaries and positions of power and influence. The idea that this situation could be justified through an appeal to doing our patriotic duty, as Minister Sherlock suggests, is the very kind of fraudulent rhetoric Connolly was denouncing 112 years ago, and he would most surely be denouncing it if he were around today.