Tynan condemns slams "opposition" for secret deal on Freedom of City

Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan has a backroom deal has been made between the three parties that control the Mayoral Pact on Cork City Council to share the Freedom of the City over the next four years. The deal has been done in order to push through tomorrow night’s proposal to make the award to former Fine Gael deputy Peter Barry.

Fine Gael and Labour have joined forces with the main government party Fianna Fáil to secure the award for Mr. Barry, a former Tánaiste and member of a coalition government which was in power when thousands of jobs were lost in Cork including Fords, Dunlops and Verolme Cork Dockyard. The latter closed when the government gave a contract for replacement naval patrol vessels to a non-EU member state.

Cllr. Tynan said that once again the controlling clique on the city council had made a secret deal to the benefit of their own parties and to the detriment of democracy and at considerable cost at a time when the council is cutting back on important services and staff.

The Workers Party councillor said that the arrangement made a mockery of the talk of change coming from the alternative government-in-waiting being offered by Fine Gael and Labour. “In Dáil Éireann”, he said, “The main opposition parties give the impression they are at war with Fianna Fáil, but in Cork City Hall they are inseparable allies in order to share the extravagant spoils of office”.

“Just over a week ago”, said Cllr. Tynan, “we heard the Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore talk about fundamental change in Irish politics and “liberating the country from insiders who have squandered our prosperity’ – he also offered a ‘clear break with the political past’”. I wonder is Mr. Gilmore aware that of the insider deals being made by his own councillors in Cork City Hall?”, asked the Workers Party councillor.

“Are we really to believe that a government composed of Fine Gael and Labour would be any different to one led by Fianna Fáil when all three parties can merrily coalesce to share out the spoils of office in City Hall?”, he queried

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