PRESS STATEMENT - Cowen needs to step up at EU summit

Speaking ahead of tonight’s EU leaders summit Mary Lou McDonald has criticised Taoiseach Brian Cowen for agreeing to the Commission’s budget deficit reduction deadline of 2014 noting, “Europe’s insistence that Ireland reduce it’s deficit from 32% to 3% in just four years is bonkers. Germany and France broke the Stability and Growth Pact during the boom years so how on earth can political leader or institution credibly expect any member state to deliver such a mammoth fiscal correction in the current crisis. Fine Gael and Labour’s support of the 2014 deadline yet again illustrates the cosy consensus of self-interest that has emerged amongst the political establishment. Agreeing to a deadline you accept cannot be met is also of course deeply dishonest.”

The Sinn Féin Vice President said: “As always the devil is in the detail and what lies behind the 2014 deadline is deeply worrying. It appears that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now structuring EU member states fiscal policies. Top of tonight’s agenda will be a call from the German’s to change existing EU treaties to make permanent a financial crisis mechanism for euro member states. Naturally there is a catch. The German Chancellor, with the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, wants the voting rights of any member state to be suspended if they breach EU budget rules.

“Sinn Féin will next week publish its budget 2011 proposals within which we set out an honest and realistic timeline to reduce the budget deficit by 2016. The 2014 deadline may suit Berlin’s balance sheet but surely even the EU Apparatchik’s must realise that any correction that stifles growth will deepen Ireland’s crisis.

“Also up for discussion will be the EU Commission’s ‘Single Market Act’ unveiled this week. It contains 50 or so proposals, including the Commission’s Directive for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) across the EU. The government with the support of Fine Gael and Labour has already surrendered any hope of growth in the Irish economy by agreeing to the EU’s 2014 deadline so how can we have any confidence that any of the three main political parties will not do the same when the EU finally enforces it’s plan to enforce a CCCTB on member states?” ENDS

We Are Where We Are

Pickets outside the Dáil are fairly commonplace these days so it was no surprise to see a small – but determined looking – group waving placards as I pulled in last week. The protester in chief, dressed in what can best be described as a Fidel Castro outfit, approached me. He started to sing ‘Hello Mary Lou’ – I know, I know, - through a loud hailer and handed me a CD. I took a closer look at the guy and glory be, it was none other than Paddy Cullivan from the Camembert Quartet – you know the group from RTE’s Tubridy Tonight. 

Paddy and his fellow Camemberts were protesting against the use of political clichés. The CD, called ‘We Are Where We Are’, is a collection of songs written about phrases that are used and abused by politicians and pundits. It was inspired, according to its makers, by Brian Cowen, the Commentariat, the Upper Class, Charlie Haughey and Eamon Gilmore.

The times that are in it are ripe for political satire. Paddy gets stuck in, sending up the inane phraseology of the day. It’s great craic.  

‘Going Forward’ is exposed as a linguistic formulation to distance politicians from the past – their past actions and decisions. ‘We Lost The Run Of Ourselves’, ‘We Are Living Way Beyond Our Means’ and ‘Shoulder To The Wheel’ are nailed as the blame-sharing language of the NAMA classes and their political bedfellows. The often parroted ‘We Are Where We Are’ cliché is shot down as language which shields politicians and pundits from the question ‘but how did we get here?

While I cannot vouch for the musical merit of the songs, ‘We Are Where We Are’ is a refreshing piece of political satire. It punctures the waffle of the puffed up, self-important cliques that have brought misery to the masses.

If Paddy is making another CD I suggest he adds ‘Anger Is Not A Policy’ to his hit list.

In the interests of safety don’t play this CD while driving. Laughter can cause accidents! 

This article is reproduced in An Phoblacht where Mary Lou McDonald has a regular column in the monthly publication. To subscribe just log on to www.anphoblacht.com

PRESS STATEMENT - Time for government to drop it’s Mercs and Perks

Mary Lou McDonald has described as “ridiculous” Fianna Fáil Senator Donie Cassidy’s suggestion that politicians are experiencing a race to the bottom in terms of wages. Ms McDonald noted, “Senators, TDs and Ministers earn multiples of the average industrial wage. That is why Sinn Féin in it’s Budget 2011 proposals will call for a reduction in all politicians incomes including a 20% cut in TDs salaries and a 40% cut for Minister’s leaving cabinet members with a more than generous salary of €100,000 per year.”

Speaking from her Dublin Central constituency office the Sinn Féin Vice President said: “The irony of government Ministers arriving to Farmleigh in their Mercs to discuss cutting social welfare payments in the forthcoming budget is not lost on thousands of struggling families across the country.

“The government’s refusal to focus on job creation and growth since the crisis began continues to be a thorn in the side of economic recovery. History demonstrates that major financial crises are followed by a prolonged period of high unemployment. Yet Fianna Fáil and the Greens have pursued a simplistic austerity economic model that has served only to deepen the crisis and protract unemployment. It appears from the cabinet’s discussions in Farmleigh that little has changed. Attacking the low paid and unemployed and protecting the wealthy at all costs remains the order of the day

“Not surprisingly Labour and Fine Gael have joined the government parties in a cosy consensus that in order to grow a little you must cut a lot. Sinn Féin believes to grow at all you must first invest.  Addressing the deficit is just one pillar to economic recovery and the reality is that there are a myriad of fair measures to put monies back into the public purse. For example, standardising all discretionary tax reliefs and introducing a third tax rate of 48% on individual incomes in excess of €100,000 per year could raise over €1.5 billion. Sinn Féin also challenges the collective refusal by the cosy consensus to acknowledge the implications of the government’s banking policy on the public finances not just for 2011, but also for many budgets to come.

“Sinn Féin will launch its Budget submission over the coming weeks. It is a comprehensive progressive economic alternative that focuses on job creation, taxation justice, an end to wasteful expenditure and a sensible deficit reduction timeline. The people and economy deserve better than a reshuffling of bums on Dáil seats. Now is the time for honest, fair and innovative politics.” ENDS

PRESS STATEMENT - TDs salaries to be cut by 20% & Ministers by 40%

Mary Lou McDonald has this morning announced Sinn Féin’s plans to reduce TDs salaries by 20% and Ministers by 40% as outlined in the party’s pre-Budget submission to be published in the coming weeks.

The Sinn Fein Vice President said: “It is simply unacceptable for the government or indeed the ‘government in waiting’ to advocate massive cuts and a scaling down of public services to meet their 2014 budget deficit reduction deadline without themselves leading by example. That is why Sinn Féin’s Budget proposals will include significant cuts to Senator’s, TDs and Ministerial salaries.

“In our Budget proposals we will be calling for a cap on ministerial salaries at €100,000; TDs’ salaries at €75,000; and senators’ salaries at €60,000. Each salary cap remains a multiple of what the majority of employees earn across the sectors.

“Whilst this measure would save the Exchequer just €6 million euro it is a critically important signal to struggling families, the low paid and unemployed that Sinn Féin is serious in it’s commitment to fair play. This commitment is what sets us apart from the cosy consensus that has emerged between the government parties, Fine Gael and Labour.

“Sinn Féin will launch its Budget submission over the coming weeks. It is a comprehensive progressive economic alternative that focuses on job creation, taxation justice, an end to wasteful expenditure and a sensible deficit reduction timeline. The people and economy deserve better than a reshuffling of bums on Dáil seats. Sinn Féin’s way is better for the economy and for our people.” ENDS

PRESS STATEMENT - People Power win’s battle for Seán McDermott Street’s public pool

Sinn Fein’s Dublin Central Representative Mary Lou McDonald has welcomed the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s commitment to fund the repair and operation of Séan McDermott Street’s public swimming pool subject to Dublin City Council (DCC) providing its portion of the necessary funding.

Ms McDonald said: “The success of the campaign to keep the pool open shows what ‘people power’ can achieve. Congratulations to the community for fighting so hard to keep Seán McDermott street swimming pool open.  It is now up to Dublin City Council to make sure that the extra funding is found for the pools’.

“The Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport’s has agreed to provide €600,000 to DCC to assist in the repair and operation of three public swimming pools in Coolock, Crumlin and Seán McDermott Street on the condition that DCC allocate the remaining €700,000 required in the 2011 Budget. 

“The responsibility for keeping these important public amenities open now lies squarely with Dublin City Councillors when negotiating the city’s Budget in the next few weeks. We cannot have a repeat of last year’s Budget fiasco when Labour and Fine Gael supported a budget that specifically targeted inner city communities with cuts resulting in the closure for the three public pools. The government has stepped up, hopefully Fine Gael and Labour will too.”

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ESRI place uncomfortable spotlight on government, Labour and Fine Gael’s commitment to 2014 deadline

Today’s ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary has thrown an uncomfortable spotlight on the cosy consensus view amongst the government parties, Fine Gael and Labour that Ireland must reduce its budget deficit to 3% by 2014. Like Sinn Féin the Institute has recommended extending the deadline to 2016.

The report also sends a serious signal to the international community that Ireland is ready to face up to its problems. Sinn Féin is the only party to argue that the 2014 budget deficit reduction would stifle growth and deepen the unemployment crisis. Sinn Féin has consistently and calmly argued for a more realistic target of 2016. Labour and Fine Gael have fully supported the government’s sleeveen approach of agreeing to the 2014 deadline in the full knowledge that it cannot and will not be achieved. This is exactly the type of bankrupt politicking that has brought Ireland to its knees.

Year on year since the economic crisis began the government has rigidly stuck to its austerity model whilst indebting future generations by pumping tens of billions into Anglo, a bank with no systemic value to the Irish economy. As far back as 2008 Sinn Féin published a policy document advocating an economic stimulus model to halt Ireland’s spiralling unemployment and promote growth. Each year in advance of the Budget we have presented to government costed alternative economic plans based on job creation, taxation justice, and end to wasteful expenditure and a sensible deficit reduction timeline.

EU Economic Commissioner Oli Rehn’s reaction to the ESRI report was informative. He stated through his Spokesperson that ‘only the EU Council can change the four year target’. Earlier this week Angela Merkal and Nicolas Sarkozy stood shoulder to shoulder in their demand for a revision of EU Treaties so as to install permanent measures to ensure peripheral member states manage their finances as told by larger states such as France and Germany. Their “Deauville Declaration” goes so far as to demand the EU suspend voting rights of member states who breach budget rules. On Monday EU Finance Ministers at a Budget Review agreed new procedures to impose financial sanctions on government’s who ‘persistently’ breech EU budget rules.

What is deeply worrying about his response is that the current Irish government along with the Fine Gael and Labour ‘government in waiting’ has completely surrendered to the EU’s budget reduction deadline of 2014 and thus it’s one size fits all fiscal management model.

Of course such a massive submission makes absolutely no sense for Ireland’s economy. It may suit Berlin’s balance sheet but surely even the EU Apparatchik’s must realise that without growth Ireland cannot pull itself out of the current crisis. It is also a little painful to listen to Merkel and Sarkozy dictate how EU financial support should be managed in the context that it is their banks history of reckless lending that fuelled much of the financial crisis in Europe. Sinn Féin is not afraid to put its head above the parapet and say stop to the EU nor are we alone is our analysis that growth based on job creation must be any government’s number one objective when making budgetary decisions.

PRESS STATEMENT - FÁS to close Cabra Training Centre next month

Sinn Féin Dublin Central Representative and Vice President Mary Lou McDonald has described FÁS’s decision to close it’s Cabra Training Centre at the end of November as unjustifiable, and she has called on the Minister for Education and Skills to immediately intervene to ensure FÁS reverses it’s decision. 

Ms McDonald added: “At a time when the government's strategy should be to increase its investment in training and up-skilling of workers it is unjustifiable that FÁS has decided to shut down it’s only Training Centre between Dublin 1 and Navan town. I challenge FÁS Director General Paul O’Toole to come out this evening and justify reducing desperately needed training places when nearly half a million people are unemployed. This decision needs to be reversed and Mary Coughlan as the Minister responsible for FÁS needs to make it her business to do so.

“Hundreds of current students who attend day and night courses at the Centre on Bannow Road will be adversely affected as will the many thousands more who will need its services over the coming months and years. If the government and FÁS are truly committed to ending the current jobs crisis then they need to put their money where their mouth is and reverse this crazy decision.” ENDS

There is something seriously wrong when a government will go to any lengths to prevent elections

The government is dead set against a general election. It would be a ‘distraction’, they say, from ‘the job in hand’. They don’t want to be ‘distracted’ from their bailouts for the bankers- cutbacks for the people agenda.

They don’t want to hold elections to fill the empty seats in Donegal South West, Waterford and Dublin South either. The ‘distraction’ of losing those bye-elections could bring the government down.

Avoiding elections is an expensive business. It cost €9000 to transport junior minister Dara Calleary from Brussels to the Dáil to vote against holding the bye-elections. He travelled by government jet and the taxpayer picked up the tab. 

Today the government goes into the High Court to defend their refusal to hold the bye-elections. Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty took the case. He believes that no government has the right to withhold people’s democratic right to vote and to have full representation in the Dáil. He’s right.

There is something seriously wrong when a government will go to any lengths to prevent elections. 

The government, Labour and Fine Gael have an agreed position to introduce crushing cutbacks over the next four years. Brian Cowen and company now want to formalise that consensus so they’ve invited like-minded parties to talks. 

The Taoiseach’s decision to exclude Sinn Féin from discussions because we oppose those cuts shows that the Government is not willing to listen to any alternative opinion.

Politicians talking among themselves is no substitute for an election. 

The scale of our economic problems, the length of the dole queues and the staggering numbers emigrating – these are the reasons why the government is running scared of elections. They are the very same reasons why an election is so necessary.

We need an agreed way forward. A way forward democratically agreed by the electorate. After all it is the people who are in charge here.  

PRESS STATEMENT - Increase in child homelessness horrific

Sinn Fein Vice President Mary Lou McDonald has described the revelation that child homelessness has increased by 60% over the last 3 years as horrific. “Just last week two former members of The Commission of Taxation said that €2.5 billion could be saved in reforming or abolishing just 131 of the existing tax breaks. So we have a situation where child homelessness is increasing while Fianna Fáil and the Green’s continue to protect the richest in society. Whatever the rhetoric, they have no real interest in protecting vulnerable children in society.”
 
Speaking from her constituency office in Dublin Central Ms. McDonald said: “Of course neither the HSE nor its bosses in the Department of Health and Children have taken any responsibility for the dramatic increase in child homelessness, most of whom are in the greater Dublin area. By 2004 child homelessness had fallen to 495 but by 2009 that figure had increased to nearly 800 with a quarter of these being children under the age of 12.
 
“It is unacceptable that a single child in our society should be denied the right to a roof over their head. It is particularly galling in the context that Fianna Fáil and the Greens, with the support of Fine Gael and Labour, are intent on savaging front line services and supports over the next four years whilst as much as €11.4 billion continues to be lost to the exchequer each year through the various tax reliefs.
 
“During my time in the European Parliament I secured majority support from MEPs to end street homelessness throughout the EU by 2015, enabling the European Parliament to actively pressure all European institutions and member states to deliver on the 2015 commitment. Fianna Fáil and the Greens have no commitment to protecting our most vulnerable children, and if Labour and Fine Gael continue to support the government’s failed plan to reduce the deficit to 3% by 2014 through cuts of up to €4 billion or more each year then clearly they have commitment to end child homelessness either. Sinn Féin is now the only party offering a real alternative to the cosy cartel in Leinster House, an alternative that can literally keep the roof over children’s heads.” ENDS

PRESS STATEMENT - Dublin City Council & VEC yet to make a single student grant payment

Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has this afternoon expressed outrage on learning that Dublin City Council and VEC have yet to make a single grant payment to students.

The Dublin Central representative went on to say: “I simply cannot believe that Dublin City Council and VEC believe it is right or appropriate to not make a single grant payment to our most vulnerable third level students despite the academic year being well under way.

“According to the Union of Students in Ireland’s figures there are 26 VEC’s and 16 Local Authorities yet to make a single payment to grant applicants. That Dublin City Council and VEC are among those yet to pay out is an absolute scandal.

“Students who apply for grant assistance are clearly struggling therefore they depend heavily on this financial assistance. For many late grant payments make continuing in college impossible. If the Minister for Education is truly committed to a fair and first class third level education system then she needs to stop punishing the states most vulnerable students by once and for all addressing this perennial problem of late student grant payments.

“Sinn Féin is calling on the Minister to immediately facilitate a review of the existing backlog that exists in Dublin City Council and VEC, to allocate temporary staff to process applications and make the necessary payments. The Minister also needs to issue an urgent directive to all third level institutions in Dublin ordering temporary registrations of all grant applicants in order to allow students to participate fully in their courses. Of course ultimately the government needs to stop faffing about and implement the Student Support Bill which has been stopped in its tracks since 2008.” ENDS

Press Statement - Pyrite found in Dublin City Council homes

Dublin City Council (DCC) has confirmed the presence of pyrite in a number of its social housing units in Ballbough following a question put to the city Manager by Sinn Féin. Mary Lou McDonald has criticised management for taking an unreasonable amount of time to complete its initial findings, “The families affected in Ballbough first raised this issue with the Council over a year ago, and despite their efforts the Council has yet to even tell them that it has found pyrite in their homes.”

The Dublin Central Representative went on to say: “The Council’s response to their own findings has been lack lustre to say the least. They tell me that ‘further investigation will be required and additional sampling and testing will be scheduled in the near future.’

The homes affected have been built in recent years at the cost of 6.9 million euro, so unless the pyrite-related defects are tackled quickly the scale of the problem will worsen significantly. I am also deeply concerned that the developer responsible is still building for Dublin City Council, yet I get no sense of urgency from management on this issue.

“The health and safety of Dublin City Council tenants is at stake. I am absolutely dumbfounded that DCC is not moving hell and high water to tackle the pyrite-related damage to existing homes and ensure no future builds experience the same problems.” ENDS

Press Statement - DCC must reverse decision to sack regeneration workers

 Speaking ahead of tonight’s monthly Dublin City Council (DCC) meeting Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has called on the city’s management to reverse it’s decision to effectively sack Croke Villas, Dominick Street and O’Devaney Garden’s regeneration workers. A motion calling for the same is before the council tonight. Ms McDonald has described the workers as “the glue that keeps these communities together.” 

“These workers are a vital resource during the demolition and construction phases of regeneration as they ensure their communities are informed at every stage of the project. Community confidence in DCC’s commitment to actually deliver these regeneration projects is low and this belief is now compounded by management’s decision to withdraw funding for what are moderate salaries of around €17,000 per worker.

“DCC management’s claim that it is an appropriate time to discontinue funding for the workers as the projects are proceeding to the planning stage does not hold water as the Housing Project Management Unit of DCC has already acknowledged the decision is a budgetary one.

The Dublin Central representative has also sharply criticised DCC for reneging on its commitment to redevelop Croke Villas despite having already spent nearly €6 million of public monies on the project. “I am absolutely furious for the people of Croke Villa’s who have basically been sold a pig in a poke.

“DCC management’s decision is shortsighted. It sends a desperately negative message to these communities who have had plans for decent housing continuously put on the long finger.

“For the families in Croke Villas it is simply devastating. Their living conditions remain morally scandalous as no progress has been made on regeneration despite millions of public monies having been spent on property acquisition for the project. Is the Council now giving this community a bum’s rush?

“How galling must it be for the 22 families left in Croke Villas to see the government’s rush to bail out wealthy Anglo bondholders yet be told there’s now no money in the bank to sort out the shamefully poor conditions residents are being forced to live in.” ENDS