Tag: protest

Stop NAMA Protest - Wednesday 1pm

14th September 2009

Stop NAMAIf you are free this Wednesday 16th September please come along to Labour’s STOP NAMA Protest at 1pm outside Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. We want as many people as possible to join Labour’s TDs, Senators and activists to oppose NAMA.

The Labour Party has been consistent in our opposition to the NAMA plan since it was first mooted by Fianna Fail. Our banking system has been brought to its knees by the rampant greed and speculation of our banks and developers. Together with Fianna Fail they make up a ‘toxic triangle’ that has destroyed our economy, sending Ireland into the deepest, and maybe even the longest, economic depression of any advanced economy since the Second World War.

There is the real danger under the NAMA plan that the government will end up paying grossly inflated prices for properties, placing a financial millstone around not just the current generation of taxpayers, but possible the next generation also.

I know that it is a working day and that not everyone will be available, but I am appealing to you to turn out on Wednesday. Let your family, friends and work colleagues know that it is on. Encourage them to turn out. Use word of mouth, email, text messages – whatever you can do.

Help us make this demonstration a success and it will greatly increase the pressure on Fianna Fail and the Green Party to abandon this plan. NAMA must be stopped.

Labour Seanad motion seeks reversal of cuts affecting children with disabilities

24th October 2008

The Labour Party will urge the Government to reverse the cuts affecting children with disabilities when it tables a motion in the Seanad next Wednesday.

The text of the motion reads:

  • Seanad Éireann notes that in addition to severe cuts in allowances for young persons with disabilities, the recent budget statement contains a significant number of measures affecting children with disabilities.
  • Seanad Éireann further notes that children with disabilities are more prone to hospital visits, and are therefore likely to be disproportionately affected by the increase in A&E charges, the increase in hospital bed fees and increases in medical insurance costs.
  • Seanad Éireann believes that it is essential that children with disabilities have access to mainstream education for as long as possible. In this regard, class size is an essential ingredient of success for both the teacher and student. The increase in permitted class size from 27 to 28 per teacher will adversely affect every child’s education, but most especially those with disabilities.
  • Seanad Éireann deplores the deferring of implementation of the “Education for Persons with Special Needs Act”, together with the 1% cut in funding for voluntary disability bodies which comes on top of an already implemented 1% cut to the same organisations by the HSE.
  • Accordingly, Seanad Éireann calls on the government to reverse these unacceptable cuts forthwith.

Despite not being referred to in the Budget, the Minister’s callous move to stop disability allowance for 16 and 17 year olds has caused great upset for those families affected.

The Minister told the Dáil he was looking out for those most vulnerable in society. Children with disabilities, and their families were not even considered. Instead we have an insensitive and unsympathetic Government whose cuts have been aimed at those they hoped would not complain.

Get in Touch :: I have already received numerous calls and emails in relation to this issue. If you are affected, or have any issues or concerns you would like us to raise in the Seanad, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Remember ::  Labour’s Private Member’s Business in the Seanad onchildren with disabilities takes place on Wednesday 29 October at 5.30pm. You can watch the proceedings live by clicking here.

Share the cost of health care across the board

23rd October 2008

One of the 15,000 to protest outside Leinster House yesterday

One of the 15,000 to protest outside Leinster House yesterday

Prior to the unprecedented events we witnessed outside Leinster House yesterday, I raised the matter of Medical Cards and the health system as a whole at the Order of Business in the Seanad. Below is an edited transcript.

 

We need to have a debate on the medical card for the over-70s issue today. Everyone in the country is talking about these issues while we seem to be the only body that is not, apart from the opportunity to raise it on the Order of Business. We should amend the Order of Business to allow a debate with the Minister for Health and Children on this issue today.

There is nothing short of chaos in the entire budgetary process. Yesterday I made the point that people do not believe what they are being told. That is a very serious matter for a government. It is one thing to disagree with a government but another not to believe it. There is a credibility gap with the figures behind yesterday’s reversal and many other issues. The Government needs to engage seriously with the people, giving them the information and clarity they require and deserve.

Over the summer holidays, the Supreme Court brought in a serious judgment which involved criticism of the Legislature in respect of the health insurance scheme and BUPA. I am very critical of the ideology espoused by the Minister for Health and Children regarding the health services. This is one area, however, in which I agree with her. I supported her position in the BUPA case in which she argued in the Supreme Court that the important principle of risk equalisation was a fundamental prerequisite for the effective operation of community rating. In other words, it is to spread the cost of health care across the board by charging younger and healthier people the same cost for health insurance, in order to support those who are older and more in need of services.

It is a very noble communitarian principle which I would extend. The entire community, in particular those well able to pay more for health services, should be called upon to pay their fair share for a truly universal system of health care.

The communitarian ideals the Minister argued in the Supreme Court in the BUPA case should be extended across the board. For once and for all, let us face up to the need to have a proper health service with the same minimum standard of health care for all citizens, irrespective of income.

The risk equalisation scheme was interrupted in 2005 and has not yet come into place. When will the legislation be introduced for dealing with the effects of the Supreme Court judgment in the BUPA case? Will the Leader invite the Minister for Health and Children to debate the risk equalisation issue and allow us an opportunity to consider the wider question of universal health care which arises from this case?