Government intent on shutting down social housing says Tynan

Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has warned that the government and city managers are intent on shutting down social housing and handing it over to private or voluntary groups.

The Mayfield based councillor said that while there have been long-term problems without housing waiting lists, over the past few months the allocation of social housing units had come to a virtual standstill while the building of new housing units directly under local authority control was practically non existent.

Cllr. Tynan said: “I am deeply concerned that Cork City Council and other local authorities are going to offload social housing in the same way as they privatised the refuse service and now the water service.  Social housing provision is more likely to be handed over to housing charities or indeed to private landlords.  I believe this would be a very bad outcome for local authority tenants and those on the waiting lists”.

He continued, “This government, in league with the European Union bureaucracy which brought us the Troika, is determined to turn a whole raft of state agencies, including local authorities, into purely regulatory bodies.  In effect the state is divesting itself of social responsibility.  The rights of citizens to jobs, roofs over their heads and a social welfare safety net is being eroded day by day.

Cllr. Tynan, who is standing for re-election in the Cork City North East ward, said that local government would cease to be relevant to citizens if its role as a service provider is abolished. “There will be a major battle on the new councils to preserve key services such as social housing.  If re-elected I intend to fight to keep these services under public control through the local authorities.”, he said.

Deduction of Household Charge is theft says Tynan

Workers Party Councillor Ted Tynan has said that the Revenue Commissioners’ imminent deduction of unpaid Household Charges was nothing less than pure theft from the pay-packets of workers and the welfare payments of honest citizens.

Cllr. Tynan said that the circulation of letters of intent to thousands of homes in the last few days had caused anguish and anger and many people already struggling to make ends meet now find their meagre incomes are about to be raided.

He pointed out that when the Household Charge was introduced originally it had nothing to do with Revenue and was supposed to be about funding local government, recent legislation converted unpaid charges into a portion of Property Tax purely to give Revenue the power to deduct it directly from pay or welfare.

“This is the lowest of the many disgusting decisions taken by the present government. It is utterly reprehensible.  It is theft by any other name.    I think the best way householders can respond to this larceny is to join the protests against the installation of water meters because converting water charges to a tax is likely to be the coalition’s next nasty step.  If governments resort to coercion to enforce an injustice then there can only be one answer and that is mass organised resistance”, said Cllr. Tynan.

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Government playing a "softening up" game on water charges

Councillor Ted Tynan

Cork Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has accused the government of playing a cynical game of rumour and denial as part of a “softening up” exercise to prepare people for much higher water charges than originally stated.

Cllr. Tynan said that the issue of whether there would be a standing charge on water bills was a “red herring”.  The real issue, he said, was the fact that these charges are unnecessary, have nothing to do with water conservation and are a prelude to privatisation of water services in this country.

“Water”, said “Cllr. Tynan, “ is essential to human life, wellbeing and hygiene.  It is already more than paid for through central taxation as it has been for decades. The new water charges are nothing less than extortionary double taxation.”  

“The standing charge issue is just further proof that water charges will cripple working class families and must be resisted and stopped.  If we do not fight the installation of meters and these unjust charges then the sky is the limit on how high the prices will soar”, said the Workers Party councillor.

Tynan slams wanton waste of boarded-up homes

Hundreds of thousands of euro paid annualy to private company for hire of steel shuttering

Scarce money paid for this!

Mayfield Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan has described the situation where over 500 local authority flats and houses remain empty in Cork City at a time of housing crisis as a “no brainer”.

Speaking at tonight’s (Monday) meeting of Cork City Council, Cllr. Tynan said that with  8,000 people on Cork City Council’s housing list it simply made no sense to have hundreds of homes boarded up at considerable cost to the local authority. He also raised the ongoing problem with the faulty district heating system in Mayfield

“People may not realise that Cork City Council is paying out hundreds of thousands of euro every year to rent out the steel shuttering used to secure the empty homes.  In 2012 the council paid over €175,000 to a private company to hire these steel shutters.  This figure continues to rise.   At the same time there is a hidden cost to the council in tackling vandalism, illegal dumping and other forms of anti-social behaviour which are encouraged when an area looks neglected”, said Cllr. Tynan.

The Workers’ Party councillor said that the City Council was paying for neglect and the money used in shuttering, security and tackling anti-social behaviour should instead be used to make good the empty homes.  “This simple act”, said Cllr. Tynan, “could create badly needed building jobs, reduce the housing list, improve the look of many areas and actually increase the revenue of the City Council through rent”.

Cllr. Tynan said that the government had become ideologically blinkered against anything progressive, viewing everything purely on grounds of immediate cost rather than weighing up the benefits of a scheme.  “They would rather leave the 500 homes boarded up and pay for  them to remain derelict than invest in the future because the whole culture of austerity has infected their thinking.  They simply refuse to see the obvious”, said the Workers’ Party Councillor

Concluding, Cllr. Tynan appealed to the City Manager for urgent action to deal with the ongoing problems with the district heating system at Glenamoy Lawn and Ardbhaile, saying it was causing serious hardship for many residents who were paying for heat they were not getting from the system.

Tynan slams Irish Water's €50 million consultancy spent

Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan has said that the new Irish Water company had become a magnet for profiteers and opportunists, many of them hoping to make a financial killing from the eventual privatisation of the public water system.

Cllr. Tynan said that while Fine Gael and the Labour Party had come to power on a platform of so-called reform, including the abolition of 145 Quangos, they had created a super-quango in Irish Water which had already engaged a raft of consultancy firms at a cost of €50 million to the taxpayers.

“It is not however only the issue of this huge sum of money paid to consultants that is deeply disturbing”, said Cllr. Tynan, “but the nature of the consultants and the previous roles most of them have played in privatisation of public assets, including water. Like vultures these consultants have come to pick on the bones of the public water system and are being paid a huge bounty in the process, a tab that will be put onto the consumers who already pay for water through taxation”.

Cllr. Tynan will be calling for the suspension of Standing Orders at a meeting of Cork City Council tomorrow evening (Monday) in order for the issue to be discussed.   He concluded by saying that the Irish Water debacle should be a wake-up call to householders. “It is not too late to stop water charges and the march of Irish Water in their tracks by halting the installation of water meters. This requires public resistance on a major scale but the alternative is to surrender to ever soaring charges and sale of a critical public asset”.

Government takes away key elderly / disabled grants

 The latest changes in eligibility criteria for home adaptation and mobility grants for the elderly and those with a disability have been condemned by Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan.

The Mayfield councillor said that the government had come like a thief in the night on New Year’s Eve to bring in the new rules, which will make it harder for people to qualify for grants to adapt their homes and would affect three key areas of assistance:  the home adaptation grant for disabled people, the housing adaptation grant for the elderly, and mobility aid grant scheme.

Cllr. Tynan said that after all the hype about the departure of the Troika and the so-called regaining of Irish sovereignty it was clear that nothing had changed in relation to austerity and cuts to the most basic of services.  “The Troika maybe gone”, said Cllr. Tynan, “but the culture of vicious attacks on the most vulnerable remain and will continue under the Fine Gael & Labour coalition”.