Cork City Hall demo tonight
cork |
worker & community struggles and protests |
news report 
Monday June 21, 2004 14:45
by Corkie
25 year FF/FG/LAB pact continues
A number of groups will put a picket on tonight's inaugural meeting of the new Cork City Council in protest against service charges and the continuation of a 25 year old pact between Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Labour Party.
The pact is a deal between the three parties on the position of Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor, chairmanship of key committees and plum positions on outside bodies such as the Port of Cork Company and the VEC.
Despite fighting the election under the slogan "Show them (Fianna Fail) the Red Card" the Labour Party's six councillors will once again cosy up to Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.
A number of groups will be mounting pickets at tonight's meeting at Cork City Hall (7.00pm).
Cork Householders Against Service Charges will protest at the pro-service charges position of the majority of councillors.
The Socialist Party with its newly elected poll-topping Councillor Mick Barry will protest at the lack of democracy on the City Council.
The Workers' Party will protest against the pact and service charges.
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4Good to see people having a go at those dodgy FF-Lab-FG councillors in Cork.
Now that the count in Dublin City is over, who is dealing with who. I believe that there is an "anti bin tax" majority with Labour and Sinn Fein and others having a majority. So why won't the Bin Tax be abolished? Will they call off any attempts to not collect bins? Will Labour fail us all yet again and vote for bin tax?
We are about to see some pretty comical manoeuvering in the Dublin City council chamber. Although there is a anti-bin tax majority on the council, there is no chance that this will have any effect on rolling back the tax. Even if SF and the LP were to vote down the charge the council would simply be abolished by the city manager. This was actually reiterated several times by government ministers during the election counts as it became clear that SF would have a good number of councillers.
The council has two basic choices.
1) Refuse to approve the budget estimates that include bin taxes and get abolished.
2) Approve the charges to 'save local democracy'
The first one will not happen as SF will not pass up the opportunities that the council gives them of promoting candidates for the next general election. We already have a precedent for this in Sligo. As Gerry Adams said "Sinn Féin councillors in Sligo, rather than seeing the service go entirely over to privatisation, and seeing the aged, or people on low incomes, suffering, then went for a more pragmatic approach. The same thing has happened in Monaghan. Our position is against it. But in terms of the actual practicalities of working out these matters, as part of local government, the party made compromises on it,"
The Labour party, also have pretty good form on this. Dermot Lacey, slimeball that he is, used his casting vote as mayor to 'save local democracy' last year and pass the bin charges estimates.
The real wrangling in the council chamber will be between the LP and SF and it will not have anything to do with stopping the bin tax, it will be a battle to paint the other party as the ones who sold out on the bin tax. The Labour party, who have less to lose from an abolished council, may try to force the Shinners to approve the tax by going to the brink of abolition. Both parties might play the old "several councillers were sick / hiding in the toilet" card during the vote. Anyway, we're in for some entertainment. Don't you just love the cut and thrust of principled politics.
They've done a deal with 'them' in Sligo as well.
Can't even keep an election promise for more than a week after the elections.
The continuation of the 'deal' on Cork City Council means that Fianna Failer Sean Martin, brother of Minister Michael Martin, will be elected as Cork's Lord Mayor this evening.
What was all this talk of the FF/PD government being given a 'good kicking' in the election? All the deals on the city and county councils remain firmly in place, and the establishment politicians carry on as if Fianna Fail didn't get a drubbing in the election. No wonder there is such widespread cynicism about politics.
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