Up-Date from our friends at Focus Ireland

Image via Wikipedia

Dear Machholz,

Supporters of Focus Ireland sent almost 3,000 e-mails to TDs and Senators calling for the appointment of a new Minister for Housing and Homelessness to have a voice in deciding the contents of the budget. Unfortunately, the Government decided not to make that appointment before budget day, but the high level of public scrutiny on the issue ensured that the homeless budget was largely protected. While so many areas of expenditure were being cut, the cuts to services to end homelessness were relatively small. So thank you for that support. It shows we can make a difference.

The decision on when to appoint a new Minister for Housing and Homelessness and who it will be, will be made by Deputy Eamon Gilmore, as leader of the Labour Party. Deputy Gilmore took the time to reply to everyone who participated in our campaign, but most people found his reply very unsatisfactory. He did not acknowledge tha t the appointment of a new Minister is entirely in his hands and did not explain the reasons for his delay. Most importantly he gave no assurance that when a new Minister is appointed that she or he will actually have a voice at cabinet.

We think these issues are so important that we are asking people to reply to Deputy Gilmore, expressing disatisfaction at his reply and emphasising the importance of recognising the scale of our housing crisis by having a Minister for Housing at the Cabinet table.

Please support this campaign by clicking here. We have drafted a letter for you – but the more you individualise it with your own thoughts on this issue, the stronger the campaign will be.

With thanks for your continued support,

Mike Allen

Director of Advocacy.

Related articles

• Response from The Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore T.D on Syria (thepressnet.com)
• Focus Ireland (thepressnet.com)
• EU treaty: Britain’s isolation not in Ireland’s interests (telegraph.co.uk)
• Jobs for mates – Gilmore lawer gets top judges job! (politics.ie)
• Focus Ireland up-date (thepressnet.com)
• Fianna Fáil opposition to cut in child benefit (politics.ie)
• More on Tommy Broughan ….. (cedarlounge.wordpress.com)
• Dithering Gilmore (politics.ie)
• Questions over Gilmore’s leadership at cabinet (politics.ie)
• What is the story with Labour? (politics.ie)

Comment:

In the spirit of the time of the year I beg all of our followers to bombard this dithering politician to do the right thing .The most vulnerable are paying a severe price for the crimes of so called enlightened and educated people who are responsible for the collapse of our public finances.

We all owe it to ourselves to stand with these less well off fellow citizens and demand that they will not be made scapegoats just because they have no political voice. Do the decent thing  and support our friends at Focus Ireland in their campaign

Thank you and happy Christmas to all

machholz

Presidential election : My vote goes to the candidate who takes a 90% salary cut!

I just heard (on Newstalk radio) of the shenanigans that Fine Gael is up to in relation to the presidential elections and in particular their attempts to scupper Mr. David Norris attempt to get the vital support of the last county councils around the country .There is a clear discrepancy in what Head office has announced in the national airwaves and what the various Fine Gael councillors are in fact doing .Every day that goes by, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see any difference between Fine Gael and the ousted Fianna Fail parties with regards to the way they are doing business .Democracy is not and should not be the gift of pampas politicians and would be politicians. It is the right of every Irish citizen to chose whom they wish to stand for this election. The politicians have again succeeded in stealing this right from the general population.

I am not a supporter of any of the already declared candidates but I do not presume to have the right to dictate who should stand in this election. Personally I do not see any greatness in any of the candidates. I would rather be in a position to vote for Mrs. Nelly Murphy down the road who worked all her life and is now unemployed and is expected to bear the brunt of the austerity measures most of the politicians in this country have supported .It would be nice to have an ordinary person take up this office for the average industrial wage .As president you have really no bills you get a free house for 7 years
and the taxpayer pays everything so there is no need to pay anybody 300,000 Euros
now it there?   Perhaps my vote could be bought if any of the candidates would come out and declare they would not take the 300,000 Euros that is on offer and instead take a reduced salary of 30,000 the rest of the money to be given back to the people of Ireland.

None of the candidates are worth free board and lodging and 2,100,000 Euros .Heck I’m not worth it!

NAMA sets up dedicated contact email address for politicians

Namawinelake tell us in its latest posting the following

By Namawinelake

Three weeks ago, it was reported on namawinelake  that Wicklow independent TD Stephen Donnelly had managed to prod NAMA into getting a move-on with examining the developer business plan which covered Greystones Harbour, which is being developed by Sispar. And last week, another Wicklow TD, Fine Gael’s Simon Harris reported some success of his own in his communications with NAMA.

In the recent Tidy Towns competition – for the non-Irish audience, “Tidy Towns” is an annual competition, run since 1958, that promotes clean, litter-free, well-maintained towns and villages throughout the country –  Greystones was criticised for the poor state of one of its buildings, the former La Touche hotel.

full article at source:http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/nama-sets-up-dedicated-contact-email-address-for-politicians/

Related articles

• NAMA sets up dedicated contact email address for politicians (namawinelake.wordpress.com)
• Don’t believe the spin “Cuts are reducing services using a back door called health and safety” (thepressnet.com)

Next budgets savings of 3.6billion already gone to pay back unsecure gambling debts of bondholders

On the Vincent Browne talk show last night I learned our Finance Minister agreed to pay back 3.6 billion in unsecured bonds from Anglo Irish Bank .This again is a blatant breach of promises made to the Irish public by Fine Gael and the Labour during the last election! Remember “not one cent more” well that has  completely gone by the wayside along with most of their promises. In any case we are now again paying 3.6 billion Euros to gamblers. The entire so called “savings” that these layers’ in government are hoping to take off the poorest in our society in the next budget will in fact go directly to gambling bondholders .In other words we are only go through these sever austerity measures because the labour politicians who promised not to pay unsecure bondholders “not one cent more” have lied to us.

We are paying all the gambling debts that have gone in the wrong direction for these bondholders   in spite of the fact these same bondholders could have taken out an insurance policy known as a hedging! I have 15 years experience in the financial markets and I can assure you every investor at this level is aware that they can insure themselves against such potential losses.
These Anglo Bondholders were too greedy, they did not want to go to the expense
of insuring themselves and they are now going to get all of their losses paid back to them by the gullible people of Ireland who believed in the twiddle dumb and twiddle Dee politicians of the labour party and in Fine Gael. I am incensed at this prospect of handing over 3.6 billion and not getting back anything.

Just imagine what a 3.6 billion euro in an emergency jobs stimulus program would do for the country or what about the up-skilling and re-education of the 465,000 unemployed or an injection of these billions into the health service and lifelong education of all our citizens. What an impact this would have in every community .Here in Wicklow Town we have 3000 unemployed and there is nothing been done for them ,nobody expect’s to get a job anytime soon. The local FAS is a joke and the prospects of employment in the area is akin to looking to win the national lottery .

Labour and Fine Gael have betrayed the people as I said they would .No surprises there!

link to Vincent Browne show: http://www.tv3.ie/shows.php?request=tonightwithvincentbrowne&tv3_preview=&video=40286

The fight for Special needs will go on!

It’s a very sad day in Ireland when parents and teachers have
to go out on to the streets and demand that children with special needs be
given a fair chance to an education. The politician who promised to protect these
rights enshrined in our constitution are now busy looking after themselves they
have ditched their promises’ to the ordinary people of Ireland. The message to
these politicians is clear we will not stand by and allow you to steal our
children’s future!

Fine Gael and Labour will be held accountable ,you cannot keep passing the blame on
to the other shower of wasters!

Related articles

• Focus Ireland (thepressnet.com)
• Fine Gael core beliefs/ideology. Do they exist? (politics.ie)
• The public want answers ! (thepressnet.com)
• Fine Gael tell us – Ireland must clear debt or ‘go back under Britain’s skirts (politics.ie)
• Dublin: Winter Fuel Allowance Among Imminent Welfare Cuts (lostchildreninthewilderness.wordpress.com)
• Dublin: Parents and Teachers To March Against Special Needs Cuts (lostchildreninthewilderness.wordpress.com)

Response from the Wicklow TD

I have received a response from the Wicklow TD Simon Harris (FG) to previous post  Wife can keep 7,000,000:00 in cash?(NAMA)

Thomas,

Thank you for your email and my apologies for only getting the time to respond to it now.

I read the linked Irish Times article with great interest and agree that this is a very unpalatable situation.

I will ensure that your thoughts and views are fed into Fine Gael Parliamentary Party discussions and I will also raise the issue directly with my colleague Michael Noonan TD, Minister for Finance.

Please do let me know if there is ever anything else that I can directly be of help with, I am happy and eager to help in any way that I can.

Kind Regards,

Simon.

Simon Harris TD
Wicklow-East Carlow

Constituency Office:
Office 4, Market Court, Main Street, Bray, Co. Wicklow
Phone: 01-6183805 (Dáil) | 01-2813727 (Constituency)

Comment:

Well at least he had the decency to reply!

 

The public want answers !

Earlier on today I met these citizens outside the Dail,
demonstrating against the cut in the bus service in their area of the city the
removal of the bus number 19has seriously curtailed their ability to get around.A Fine Gael TD’ tries to justify the salary of200,000 Euros for  Edna Kenny after the short interaction I asked the lady if she was satisfied with the answers she got from the TD

Have a look below (Video)