Thursday 18 August 2011

Cash-strapped Cork City Council splashes cash on Queen and Junk Garden


The knife continues to be wielded on a daily basis at City Hall as vital services such as housing maintenance continue to be subjected to cuts.  At the same time, the city’s refuse service has just being privatised and householders can now expect to pay a lot more for a poorer service while waivers will soon be a thing of the past regardless of your personal circumstances or income.  However while this slashing of expenditure goes on relentlessly, there seems to be no shortage of cash when it comes to junkets, so-called VIPs or frivolity.   A case in point is the visit of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth last May.      

Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan condemned the “wanton waste of public money” surrounding the visit and put down a series of probing questions to the City Manager at a recent council meeting, seeking to get to the bottom of the expenditure.  The answers to his questions were astonishing with the following expenditure being uncovered:

·         A fast-tracking of €40,031 on capital improvement to the Princes Street Market in advance of the queen’s 15 minute jaunt through the market.

·         €87,439 spent on special road works and cleansing in addition to the cost of sealing drains, manholes and culverts in case terrorists might lurk in them.

·         €70,000 on floral and hedging displays, environmental improvements and enhancement of the visual environment (putting up hoardings to hide derelict sites, painting over graffiti, etc)

·         €5,000 on a once-off website for the visit which is now redundant.

·         €30,380 on producing press packs and providing media facilities to local and visiting press and television.

·         €786.50 for a silver brooch and some leather-bound books for the queen

·         €90,195.46 on staging street events, music and producing a video.

·         €2,344 for hospitality (presumably food and drink) for visiting “dignitaries” including the Mayor of Swansea and government ministers.

That’s a total of €326,133.46 on the visit, which does not include expenditure at national level such as garda overtime, security, etc.

Then there is the now infamous sky-garden designed by “celebrity” gardener Diarmuid Gavin which Cork City Council has already spent in the region of €400,000 in purchasing, on top of almost €750,000 of taxpayers’ money spent by Fáilte Ireland.   The garden, which is now covered in tufts of grass and weeds, is lying redundant and starting to rust in the Showgrounds while the council decide what to do with it.  Meanwhile the City Manager has refused to disclose documentation on the deal with Gavin which was sought by the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information.   Cllr. Tynan has pledged to pursue the matter when at the next meeting of the city council.

Cork City Council privatises bin service


Workers Party city councillor Ted Tynan has condemned the decision of City Manager  Tim Lucey to privatise the city’s refuse service which came into effect on Monday, August 15th.

Cllr. Tynan said that the decision would have serious effects on the city and he said that the 11,000 people and families currently on council waivers would be thrown to the wolves once a 2 year introductory arrangement was over. 

“This decision by the city manager without any reference to the elected members”, said Cllr. Tynan, “is a step backward and will inevitably lead to a poorer service where profit will overtake public health and cleanliness as the number one priority.  It is a further move in the direction of rampant privatisation and gives a warning to householders that once water charges are introduced privatisation of the water service will be next on the agenda”.
“The temporary continuation of a waiver scheme and the initial price to consumers is merely a ploy, the real cost of this to consumers, and particularly to those on very low incomes, will come in a few years time.  Then we will see the real price of this service to consumers and the price to the environment and to workers’ rights and rates of pay”, he said.

The Workers Party councillor said that the move should alert householders to what is coming down the tracks if water charges are introduced without a strong challenge.  “Water Charges must be resisted because water privatisation is next on the agenda.  It cannot succeed however if there is massive resistance from householders to water metering and charges. Privatisation is about private profit and without charges there is no private profit”, said Cllr. Tynan.

Fás - New Name, Same Old Schemes


Cllr. Ted Tynan has said that the rebranding of the national training and employment agency Fás as SOLAS would be meaningless to the unemployed and those seeking to improve their work prospects unless there was a fundamental change in emphasis and a real commitment to job creation.

The Cork Workers Party Councillor said one only had to look at the Fás website on any day and see that two-thirds of the positions on offer consist of unpaid work placements, CE schemes and the recently launched Internship placements.  Unless a real job-creation programme was put in place, the new agency would merely be a sticking-plaster to cover up mass unemployment, he said.
“This is not the first time the state training and employment agency has been rebranded”, said Ted.  “In the 1980s there were two separate agencies known as AnCo and National Manpower which were merged to become Fás but there was no fundamental change.  It was merely a change of the signs over the door and the corporate stationery. The same will happen with the new agency SOLAS and the rebranding will convince nobody unless real change is seen to be taking place”.
“While an increased role for the VECs in the training element of the new agency is to be welcomed, it takes place against a contraction in the number of VECs and without any specific commitment to funding for them which has been cut in recent years”
“What is needed is not a name-change for Fás,  but a commitment to the creation of real jobs with proper pay and conditions, real training based on sound principles, and a thorough shake-up at the top which will ensure that sleaze such as that exposed some years ago can never occur again through transparency and accountability at all levels in the organisation.  We shall wait and see if SOLAS lives up to this but the omens are not good from a government which has, in its first six months, been found to be venal, dismissive and dishonest”, said Councillor Tynan

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.”