I warmly welcome the latest CSO figures, published this week, which show that in the past year there has been a 6.7% drop in the numbers signing on the live register at Nutgrove Social Welfare Office and an 11.2% drop at the Intreo Centre in Dún Laoghaire.
Today’s launch of the IS 399 energy efficient design management standard, by Labour Ministers for Energy Alex White and Minister of State for Business and Employment Ged Nash, marks the achievement of another commitment in the Government’s Action Plan for Jobs 2014.
My Final Campaign Message to Labour Members
Dear Member,
The new Leader of the Labour Party will be announced this Friday after an energising election process. I’d like to thank you and the many members who have engaged with this process whether by attending a husting, sharing your views or casting your vote.
Labour Leadership Husting Speech
Portlaoise, 21st June 2014
I would like to begin by thanking Labour Youth for hosting these election hustings as part of the annual Tom Johnson Summer School. Debate, argument, and the contest of ideas has always been central in the life of the Labour movement, and Labour Youth are to be congratulated for keeping this tradition very much alive, year to year.
ALEX WHITE: We must now look to harness the talents of all our parliamentarians, so as to present a more rounded view of the modern Labour Party
On the face of it what the Labour Party believes in is what most people believe in. We share a vision of society, a vision characterised by values of fairness, community, justice and equality of opportunity. We believe in the regulation of markets in the public interest. We believe in the provision of good, shared public services from our pooled resources. We believe that all of our citizens, old or young, healthy or disabled, gay or straight, people of all religions or none, are entitled to equality before the law and the best possible opportunity to live life to the fullest.
Why have the documents relating to the Dublin Docklands Development Authority not been published? Senator Dan Boyle indicated he believed they should be published quickly when the former Senator Deirdre de Búrca explosion occurred some weeks ago. Will Senator Boyle indicate to the Seanad when they will be published and, if he cannot do so, can he indicate the reason for the delay? We are informed by RTE that the Minister and the Attorney General have the reports. The Attorney General has seen them. The Minister received them last month. Apparently, the process is ongoing. What is the nature of this process?
If such reports are in existence I am not prepared to absolve in advance the Fianna Fáil party and its leadership in respect of what has taken place. In fairness, I may do so when I read the reports but I wish to see the reports first to make up my own mind.
Planning permissions apparently given by the DDDA were considered ‘non-compliant’. That is the phrase RTE has used. RTE did not inform us with what the agency was not compliant. I presume it meant the agency was not compliant with the planning code as we understand it.
It is an extraordinary situation whereby an agency, set up for a very good reason to foster development in a particular area, could end up being used as a conduit to circumvent the planning code and to cut corners. We have seen so many corners cut in recent years by persons in the private sector. We hope we will not find out now that this public body was set up to facilitate private persons and institutions circumventing the law.
“Serious times demand serious politics. After a week in which a journalist has been virtually deified for joining Fine Gael, it’s time to get real” said Alex White, the party’s by-election candidate in Dublin South.
“I am putting myself before the electorate because I believe passionately in the power of politics to inspire all of us to bring about change. Politics is not a vanity project. For me, it’s about fundamentally changing the political direction of our country.
“For years we have endured a pseudo contest between two conservative parties. We need to break out of the redundant party mould of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, which is contributing so much to our national paralysis.
“The electorate is entitled to ask what George Lee stands for.
“Fine Gael seems to think that he should be elected simply because he is well-known and new to politics. He himself has said very little. But some of what he has said is astonishing, dangerous and regressive.
“He believes the HSE should be subjected to more competition in order to deliver vital health services. This is exactly the PD philosophy of ‘competition at all costs’ that has led to the madness of co-located hospitals. George also wants to sell off Bord Gais. Has he learnt nothing from the debacle of Eircom?
“There is no doubt that Brian Cowen’s government is discredited. But I do not believe that Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael offers any genuine alternative. Enda Kenny’s leadership has little public credibility while Eamon Gilmore surpasses him consistently in polls, and in the Dail” said White.
“Bluntly put, Enda Kenny is not the leader the country wants. Celebrity endorsements will not change that.
“Nothing captures the emptiness at the heart of the Fine Gael’s electoral strategy in Dublin South more than Brian Hayes’s remarks over the weekend: ‘People are losing their jobs and George [Lee] has huge credibility because he has been on TV talking about it for so long’.
“Is this the best they can do?”
It is not an exaggeration to describe this event as a parable of our times. It tells us a number of things about where we are at this stage of our development.
First, it tells us that at the time of an economic downturn, the first people to feel the brunt are the most vulnerable in our society, those whose communities have been ravaged by under investment, drug abuse, social exclusion and the lack of basic facilities. It would be no exaggeration to say that when we talk about schemes being abandoned, we are talking about communities being abandoned.
Second, it demonstrates the folly of our over-reliance, particularly in recent years, on the private sector to address pressing social problems and concerns. We have become completely obsessed with outsourcing everything to the private sector and have little or no confidence in our ability or the ability of a properly funded public sector to take the lead in issues such as this. I am tempted to suggest that instead of denoting public private partnerships, the acronym PPP should denote private profit prevails. That is clearly what it means in the current situation.
The third thing demonstrated by the collapse of the PPP should be of urgent interest to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and to Green Party Senator Dan Boyle. It relates to the reason given for the abandonment of these projects. We have been told it relates to the downturn in construction, but what was less well noticed were the other reasons proffered by Mr. McNamara for walking away from these projects, namely, that he must, quite rightly, observe the reasonable and necessary building regulations with regard to energy conservation and apartment size that have been introduced in Dublin City. What kind of shoeboxes did he propose to build on those sites?
There are sighs from those on the Government side and no doubt this will be an issue at the famous event in Galway at the end of July. Certain elements of the construction industry, bigger builders and those who find themselves in the top two or three in the CIF’s recent publication, do not take the standards seriously. That is where the Minister’s attention should be directed.
More :: My contribution was featured on Oireachtas Report - watch it here. (From 15mins 45secs onwards)
I was on RTE Radio 1’s The Late Debate last night. On the panel with me was Mary O’Rourke TD, Fionnan Sheehan of the Irish Independent and Harry McGee of the Irish Times.
The topics discussed included the announcement of the new Ministers of State, Brian Cowen and the media and a good discussion on the Dublin South constituency.
Last night’s Prime Time Investigates programme on child protection services, showed the alarming extent to which children at risk of abuse or neglect are being failed by our social service system.
Perhaps the most shocking disclosure was that children regarded as Priority One cases - those most at risk of sexual or physical abuse - did not have a social worker allocated to them. We also saw where filing cabinets packed with documents relating to numerous cases, had not yet even been examined.
The programme drew attention to a particularly outrageous case where a foster parent reported evidence of sexual abuse of a child in her care, only for her warnings to be ignored. There seemed to be no action taken by the HSE and the suspected parents were allowed ongoing regular access to the child. It is quite clear that children in such cases are not being afforded the full protection to which they are entitled under the Children Act 2001.
It is little wonder that doctors and teachers who have to refer cases to social services have become so frustrated and disillusioned, when they discover that in all liklelihood, nothing will be done.
It was very disappointing to hear the response of new Minister of State Barry Andrews on Morning Ireland this morning. One might have expected that a new Minister would bring a new perspective and a new enthusiasm to the job. Instead what we got was a new voice, trotting out the same old excuses and offloading responsibility to the HSE. Where was Minister Andrews’ anger? Where was his determination to get this problem sorted out?
The reality is that children are being placed at unacceptable risk and that unless our child protection services are properly resourced many will face continued abuse or even death.
Just last week the newly-elected Taoiseach Brian Cowen told the Dail that the particular responsibility of the Govt was to “represent the interests of our young”. It’s now time for him to act on that worthy sentiment by ensuring that the HSE recruitment embargo is lifted and that an emergency programme of recruitment of social workers gets under way immediately.
More :: You can watch the ‘Prime Time Investigates’ programme on Child Protection by clicking here
