Elect Ruth Coppinger This Thursday you can elect another Fine Gael or Labour Party backbench TD to add to their huge tally of 113. This would copperfasten the disastrous policies of austerity and bailouts , including more draconian cuts to Connolly Hospital. On the other hand you could elect Councillor Ruth Coppinger. By doing so, [...]
Presidential Election Campaign is a farce
On October - 22 - 2011
Election campaigns involving former political prisoners seeking high office are commonplace the world over. What makes the Irish State unique, however, is that the current Presidential campaign is a contest, not to leave political captivity behind but to embrace it, and become a voluntary political prisoner for a seven year term with the option of [...]
Video: Joe Higgins questions Taoiseach on Keane Report, which he describes as a banker’s charter written by bankers
On October - 20 - 2011
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders? These mortgage holders, the majority of whom are ordinary [...]
Video: Joe Higgins asks Taoiseach why he will not write-down mortgages to their current value
On October - 12 - 2011
The extensive leaks from the report of the Keane group on distressed mortgages will be greeted with bitter disappointment by the 95,000 homeowners in mortgage difficulties, of whom 40,000 or more are in arrears of more than six months. While there may be a few speculators among these, the vast majority are victims of the [...]
Further savage cuts to Blanchardstown hospital announced whilst €3.5 billion guaranteed to Anglo bondholders
On October - 8 - 2011
The dedicated staff at all levels in Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, should be forgiven if they are in a state of some confusion and great anger this morning. As a result of a huge effort by them involving innovation, imagination, dedication and cooperation, the hospital was recently rated by the Health Services Executive as having among [...]
Video: Joe Higgins questions Tanaiste on the announcement of further cuts at Blanchardstown Hospital
On October - 6 - 2011
Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown is a vital acute facility for 333,000 people from Meath to west Dublin and Kildare to north-west Dublin. Recently the HSE demanded a costing on what it would save the hospital to go from a 24-hour accident and emergency service to a 12-hour service. The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, stated [...]
newERA privatisation of semi-states will only serve to worsen crisis
On October - 1 - 2011
Yesterday the Government announced that it is going to establish NewEra, a body to manage the State’s shareholdings in semi state companies. The Minister for Finance said that the new entity would carry out ‘corporate governance’ of companies like the ESB, Bord Gais and Coillte. We are told that NewEra will advise on, and oversee, [...]
