CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
The plan to build a new national children’s hospital at the Mater Hospital site was always problematic. I now call on the Minister for health and the HSE to invest in our existing children’s’ hospitals. The Children’s Hospital in Crumlin wants to build a new cardiac critical care facility and to upgrade their cancer treatment facilities. They need to replace old and cramped wards.
The Irish Association for Emergency Medicine has this week expressed alarm at what they say is a 700% increase in children waiting on hospital beds. They also point out that children ‘not infrequently’ spent over 12 hours on trolleys in paediatric emergency departments (PEDs).
They say there has been an eightfold increase in the number of children who receive complete episode of care in PEDs, as opposed to 2008.
These are issues which need to be dealt with urgently by the Minister and the HSE.
EVICTION STOPPED
I was pleased to be a part of a protest which stopped an eviction going ahead in County Laois yesterday, 20th February. a group of 30 to 40 people from the United Left Alliance, the Defend Our Homes League, Freedom from All Debt, and the Anti Eviction Task Force mounted a peaceful protest which persuaded the deputy sheriff and his merry men (two Gardai and a guy in a suit, no doubt representing Ulster bank) to give up and try again another day.
The house was being repossessed on behalf of Ulster Bank. the repossession order was granted not by a judge, but by the local court registar, who alos happens to be the county sheriff, who gets a fee for carrying out repossessions. there is a case coming before the High Court in April which is challenging the constitutionality of this antiquated and cosy arrangement. we should have a video of the protest up in the next day or so.
STAND FIRM ON HOUSEHOLD TAX
In the next week or so households will be getting a leaflet or booklet from the government in relation to the household tax. Don’t be bullied by threats of fines or attachment orders. You don’t have to register or pay until the 31st March.
Stand firm with the national campaign. Only 5% of households have registered so far. That means 95% of 1.8 million households have not registered or paid. We are on track to have a million households supporting our campaign by the 17th March.
Some 700 to 800 people have attended a series of meetings on this issue in Dublin South Central in March. I have also spoken at packed meetings in Clare, Louth and Longford. Thousands have attended hundreds of meetings the length and breadth of the country.
The campaign is now considering having a major rally towards the end of March, plus a national day of protest. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me at 6183215, 4540085 or ring the campaign hotline at1890 989800.
Alliance Against Austerity
Peoples’ Forum
Saturday 11th February. 11am to 1.00pm.
Crumlin College, Crumlin Road.
Hosted by Joan Collins TD with invited speakers Mick O’Reilly, Dublin Council of trade Unions and Ailbhe Smith, Community activist.
The Alliance Against Austerity was formed last November. It is supported by the United Left Alliance, the Dublin Council of trade Unions, and the unions Unite and Mandate. This forum is for individuals and community groups to discuss how they are being affected by the cuts and how a fight back can be organised both locally and nationally.
Come along and make sure your voice is heard.
No to the Household Tax
From January 1st households will be faced with yet another demand from the government that ordinary people cough up yet more to pay for the crimes of the banks and developers. This time it’s the €100 household tax. Many people, especially those on welfare, won’t be able to pay, but even if you can afford it, don’t pay.
This is your opportunity to say NO, enough is enough. You will be asked to register and to make a payment of either a €100 for the year or four installments of €25. The government estimates that some 1.6 million households are eligible to pay this tax. This is our opportunity. We can build a mass campaign of civil disobedience, with over a million households involved by refusing to register and pay.
This is not just about a €100. It is about every cut in the last five budgets, it is about the USC, it is about the pension levy, it is about bleeding our country dry to pay for the gambling debts of a greedy elite.
The No to the Household Tax Campaign is asking people not to register before the end of March, which is the time you have to register by. We will then hold a national conference before the end of March and assess the level of non payment. We believe we will have sufficient support to make the tax uncollectible. We have been sold out by the Labour Party, We have been sold out by the trade union leaders, but this time it’s up to us. You can make a difference by not registering and not paying. (see bar above for more details on No the Household Tax Campaign)
We will be calling meetings for householders throughout Dublin South Central towards the end of January. Please come along and get involved. Wishing you all a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year. Joan Collins TD.
Budget 2012 – Death by a thousand cuts
This is a mean and cruel budget. Once again, it is those on low to middle incomes, and the poor who will take the biggest hit, people who bear no responsibility for the economic crisis caused by the greed of a wealthy elite.
The promise by the government, and especially Labour, to protect the most vulnerable, is exactly that, another broken, empty promise. Not a single group among the poor or those who are struggling to make ends meet has escaped this government’s hatchet job. The list of cuts is endless, Child Benefit is cut for the third and fourth and subsequent child, Fuel Allowance is cut by six weeks, the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance is cut, and the age limit for the youngest child in one parent families is to be reduced to 7 years starting next year.
Part time workers will be hit by the reduction of Jobseekers Benefit to five days and the inclusion of Sunday working in assessing claims. Despite claims to protect old age pensioners, the State Pension will be lower in future for people who have less than 48 stamps per year, and for the Widows/er’s Pension the necessary number of stamps goes from 156 to 520 from 2013.
But the most cruel and despicable cut is for young people with disabilities. New claimants between 18 and 21 will be cut from €188 a week to €100, and for 22 to 24 year olds, from €188 to €144.
The claim that basic rates are not being cut is not true. Inflation is expected to be 2% next year, taking account of the rise in VAT. If inflation goes up by 2% and your income stays the same, you are facing a 2% cut.
On top of these cuts in welfare are the cuts in health, education and community services. Just at a time when there is a rise in poverty, inequality and disadvantage, and associated poor health, the very services people rely on and are supposedly targeted to tackle social exclusion and increase educational opportunity are being cut to the bone.
On top of all this we now face a Household Tax of €100 in January. This will apply to all households except social housing. Along with cuts in Rent Supplement and Mortgage Interest Relief, this will put many households to the pin of their collar. The rise in VAT to 23% will hit those on low incomes the hardest and will of course further cut demand and cost jobs.
All of this pain is in vain. We cannot solve the economic crisis by piling austerity upon austerity. Some €20 billion has been taken out of the economy in the last four years and yet the underlying deficit has only reduced by less that 2%. Tax revenues have fallen, welfare spending is rising as more and more people lose their jobs and the domestic economy is in depression as demand has collapsed by 25%.
The United Left Alliance has posed a realistic and workable alternative to this madness. We reject the propaganda of right wing commentators and politicians that the problem is high welfare and social spending, along with high wages in the public sector. Welfare and social spending in Ireland is not high in comparison to other EU states. It is barely adequate for a civilised modern society.
We are for capping pay in the public sector at €100,000 a year, while understanding that the vast majority are on low to moderate incomes. The problem has been caused by the neo liberal ideology of tax cuts (which mostly benefitted the very well off) and transferring the private debts of banks onto the state. These policies need to be reversed.
The wealth of the elite has not been burnt in the crisis. It has in fact increased. The assets of Ireland’s top 5% could be as high as €219 billion in 2010. A 5% assets tax could raise €10 billion a year. This is wealth which is being hoarded and not spent or invested in the economy. Taxing it would allow us to reverse the cuts in welfare, health, education and community services and abolish the USC. This would give money to people who would actually spend it in the economy, giving domestic demand and jobs a much needed boost.
This is dismissed as unrealistic, as fantasy land by all those who claim to know better. That is, the people who got us into this mess in the first place. Meanwhile we head towards oblivion, death by a thousand cuts. We have to have radical change and the sooner the better.
The EU and democracy? What a joke!
Joan Collins TD: "Who is prepared to stand up for the people and say no to Sarkozy and Merkel?"
The EU has never been democratic. The pretence that it ever was has now been abandoned as Merkel and Sarkozy brutally impose their rule. The events of the last week have been simply incredible. Firstly, Merkel and Sarkozy cook up yet another deal to be presented to the summit of EU leaders, the fourteenth such summit and so called solution to the euro crisis.
Part of this deal was to give Greece a partial write down on its debts, not enough to resolve their debt crisis, but with a price tag of another ten years of brutal austerity measures and with monitors from the EU installed in the Greek civil service to actually run the Greek state. This despite the fact that austerity is already destroying the economy. It will contract by 7% this year alone.
The Greek prime Minister then announces that this very controversial issue will be put to a referendum. He is then summoned to France by Merkel and Sarkozy for a ‘dressing down’, in other words how dare you bring the people into this discussion. He is told in no uncertain terms that any referendum has to be along the lines of, accept this deal or leave the euro.
Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, then calls off the referendum. His days are numbered. It is reported that a deal is being done to put a caretaker government in place to accept the new bail out deal and then prepare for elections, but only after the Greek people are saddled with the Merkel/Sarkozy plan.
Meanwhile our own government hands over €700 million to bond holders as part of the Anglo Irish debacle. When it is pointed out that these bonds were trading in financial markets at 50-60% of their value this year, in other words that the original holders of the bonds, fearing they would not get paid as they were unsecured, were selling them on with a 40-60% haircut, and the government was asked why didn’t you buy them back, their answer was the ECB said no.
What a pity there isn’t a single government in either Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain or Italy which is prepared to stand up for their own people and say no to Merkel and Sarkozy.
Defend our Homes League
The idea of a mortgage write down has been dismissed by the government. A mortgage write down would solve the problem of negative equity facing large numbers of householders, especially those who bought at the height of the property boom. Put simply, it means if you bought a house valued at say €350,000, which is now only valued at €200,000, your mortgage would be written down to reflect today’s valuation.
The government has put forward two objections to this, both of which are wrong. Firstly they speak of the ‘moral hazard’ of what they refer to as ‘debt forgiveness’. This is a government which found no moral hazard in handing out €700 million to unsecured bond holders of Anglo Irish Bank this week. The people who bought houses at hugely inflated prices were forced into this situation by bankers, developers and Fianna fail led governments who deliberately created the property because it brought huge profits. The same banks and developers are bailed out at enormous costs but ordinary people just have to get on with it.
Secondly they claim it would cost too much. The Department of Finance estimates it would cost €14 billion, but economist Constantin Gurdgiev estimates that if a write was applied only to average family homes and apartments, leaving out buy to let mortgages and trophy homes, this figure could be reduced to around €7 billion, half of the cost the government is claiming. The banks have already been recapitalised with taxpayers money to cover this level of mortgage losses.
Apart from helping distressed home owners by reducing their mortgages and repayments , a write down on these lines would give people more money to spend, helping domestic economic demand to recover and help to create jobs.
It would not solve all the problems, such as for those who have lost jobs and now just can’t meet repayments. There must be an independent agency who can assess ability to pay and with the power to force banks to make agreements on that basis to keep people in their homes.
No to Household Tax campaign gets going in Dublin South Central
Joan Collins TD: Can't pay, won't pay the household tax.
A series of public meetings has been held across Dublin South Central to establish local branches of the national No to the Household Tax Campaign. The national campaign is advocating a Can’t Pay – Won’t Pay strategy to defeat the tax as was done to defeat water taxes and to limit the bin charges.
The tax, to be introduced in December’s Budget, will come in at an annual flat rate of €100 in January. This will then be replaced by a value-based property tax and a metered water tax over time. The aim is to bring in an average €1,500 a household from 2013 on. It has to be stopped in its tracks. It is one more way to make working people pay for the crisis caused by a wealthy elite.
We will be out and about with stalls and calling door-to-door over the next weeks with the campaign newsletter which gives you all the facts and arguments. If you want to be involved contact;
Cllr Brid Smith for Chapelizord, Ballyfermot, Bluebell and Inchicore, Drimnagh at 087 9090166.
Cllr Pat Dunne for Kimmage, Crumlin, Walkinstown, Drimnagh at 087 6774422.
Tina Mcveigh for Bulfin, Kilmainham, Rialto Liberties, Cork St at 086 8715293
Or Joan Collins TD at 6183215 or her Constituency office at 4540085/86.
Go to Household tax bar to view or download campaign news letter
Government fails to act on mortgage crisis
The Defend Our Homes League was established in July as a response to the crisis people are facing with repossessions and evictions. The initiative was taken by the United Left Alliance, supported by the legal group New Beginning, Irish Homeowners Unite and also the support of a number of Independent TDs.
I have played a leading role in setting up the Defend Our Homes League. My Dail response to the report of the expert group on the mortgage crisis (the Keane report), was this:
“The discussion document before the House has been warmly welcomed by the banks. Indeed, it could have been drafted by them. It does not call on them to do anything more than they are doing at present. In many instances, they are not even doing what is required of them. The so-called recommendations contained in this document are mere guidelines.
“The two main issues relating to the matter of mortgage arrears are keeping people in their homes and negative equity. Neither of these is properly dealt with in the document, which is completely dismissive in the context of negative equity and states that the write-down would be too expensive. I challenge that opinion and ask in whose interest is it too expensive.
The first point I made was related to keeping people in their homes. The report disgracefully accepts that repossessions will happen and that after a bank has taken possession of a person’s home, it may be possible for that person to rent the property from it, with the debt remaining as a heavy weight on his or her shoulders. That is an outrageous idea.
“The Government should ensure that if a debtor engages with a lender and is prepared to pay a reasonable amount of net income – this should be decided not by the banks but by an independent agency – there should be no question of a person losing his or her home. People could make interest-only payments or park the mortgage in order that interest does not accrue while there is a chance to pay down some of the principal.”
To find out more about the league go to Mortgage crisis on top bar
