Wednesday, May 23, 2007

VOTE LABOUR

For anyone who has to live on wages earned or retirement pension, there is only one set of choices in this election; Labour and the other Left Parties, Greens, Independent Socialists. The more Left –wing TD’s elected to the Dáil, the better for representation and defence of the interests of working people. Trade Unionists who vote for Fianna Failure are cutting their own throats; FF/PD are the parties of the employers, exploiters, land speculators, big business, bankers and kissmea$$ foreign monopolies. These vultures don’t give a tuppenny-fuck about workers interests. Low wages and longer hours are their main aims.

YOU REALLY WANT TO GIVE THEM THE POWER?

If you vote for the continuation of FF/PD you’re voting for privatisation of your public health service, and further down the road, privatisation of education and public water supply as well. You’ll pay through the nose for these services and the FF/PD business cronies will rake in their profits at your expense. DON’T BE FOOLED by soft-sell rhetoric by Blank-Cheque Bertie. He didn’t deliver on the promises of the last two elections and he won’t deliver on the current lot either. His job is to guard the interests of the Rich Elite who own your jobs, your house mortgage and your bank credit. If you vote for him you give THEM the means to change the laws to suit THEIR interests, not yours. THEY will decide how much tax they WON’T pay and therefore, how much tax YOU WILL pay whether you like it or not. THEY will decide where houses WILL be built and where NOT. THEY will decide how much YOU WILL PAY for a house. THEY will decide who has first access to HEALTH CARE and who WILL NOT. THEY will decide to increase charges forESB, GAS, GP and Hospital visits, Public Transport, Bin Tax and the coming WATER TAX and whatever additional stealth taxes they can think up in the next five years.

BIGGER THAN THE BIGGEST BANK ROBBERY

During this Election campaign, Phoney Democrat Fuhrer Micilín Mac Doolittle, has accused other parties of bank-robbing and obtaining money from drug pushers but his party has carried out the biggest scale robbery ever in the last ten years. The Government’s own statistics show that wages as a percentage of Gross Industrial Production have fallen by a quarter; In 1997, when PD/FF came into office, the share of wages in the value of gross industrial production was 9.4%. In 2002, when their first five year term ended, the figure was reduced to 7%. This means that, by comparison, a net amount of 25% of the wages share had been transferred to PD friends in the corporate sector and all the gains of productivity in those five years had gone to them too (CSO – Census of Industrial Production 1997-2002). And that was before the Government took its tax cut and the affect of Government ordered price rises.

This means that the wage-earner’s share of the value of the “national cake” as they like to call it, has been reduced by a quarter as a direct result of PD/FF economic policies. In money terms, this exceeds any bank robberies of this or any other century. Not only have they put a big hole in the value of your wage packet but, they still have the brass-neck to demand that you pay for all the other stealth charges they have introduced as well.

RIGHT-WING GOVERNMENT - NO THANKS! PD/FF OUT! OUT! OUT!

FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 23 Bealtaine/MAY 2007.


FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 23 Bealtaine/MAY 2007.
MANAGING THE ECONOMY?

The FF/PD wage-robber coalition, two-tier health service coalition, no social-housing coalition, are begging for your vote on the false story that they have “managed” the economy better than anyone else. They have not. It’s true that the country has experienced a surge of wealth creation and prosperity in the past ten years, a prosperity the benefits of which have been denied to the 850,000 of the population who are still existing on the poverty line. It’s true there are more millionaires in Ireland than ever before; only the millionaires benefit from that, and of course, those who get “dig-outs” from time to time from some of them.

But, what is this prosperity based on? Mostly, Foreign Direct Investment and the allocation of structural funds from the EU for infrastructure development. The infrastructure investment was overdue and only a catch-up for the lack of same during the 70’s and 80’s. No provision has been made for increasing population and increased economic activity. Where will the jobs be when the construction boom is over? What use are one-bedroom shoe-box apartments to families with two or three children? Where will the investment come from for the further infrastructure needs? As was seen today, in Athlone, the jobs dependent on FDI can vanish overnight. If you believe PD/FF that 12% corporation tax is keeping foreign investment staying here, think again, a survey of American owned companies by the American Chamber of Commerce here presented by managing director Alan Gray last Friday showed that 43.5% of these companies were considering moving part of their operations out of Ireland and 8.7% are considering closing down entirely (Sunday Tribune 20/05/07).

No ideas, no vision
No measures have been advanced by this Government of Clowns and Political Fraudsters to expand the indigenous industrial base to establish local job creation on the basis of modern production. They have given away for free national assets such as the Corrib Gas Field and pretended this was progress. They have presided over the decline of Agriculture which is one of our prime natural resources. They have allowed other EU countries to sweep €50 Billion of valuable fish resources from our territorial seas in exchange for a mere €8.5 Billion of structural funds. Some deal, what? They have failed to provide a proper Research & Development programme to encourage and facilitate product innovation for the global market to be based here and not be the preserve of foreign monopolies. They have failed to extend Broadband Internet to the whole country, an essential if our economy is to compete on a global level. They have failed on Strategic Transport Planning for Dublin and the other major cities and towns. The daily traffic congestion everywhere is testament to that failure. They have failed in their responsibilities to effect measures to control carbon emissions which are contributing to possibly irreversible Climate Change unless co-ordinated international action is brought about. They have left our economy the most dependent in Europe on imported energy and have NO IDEA what to do about it.

The Shameful 90’s
No, not the Decade, but the 90,000 schoolchildren who go hungry to school every day without breakfast, and the 90,000 family units awaiting accommodation on local authority housing lists. These social scandals, the shame of civilised Europe, are the direct result of FF/PD “management” of the economy; THEIR choices, as a government, on social spending. Yet, they have had budget surpluses in 9 out of the ten years they have been in power so they can’t fob off criticism with the poor mouth. These surpluses, of course, are monies they have extracted from your wage packet with their income tax, VAT charges and stealth taxes. Now they are promising to spend more than ever because they want your vote, but it’s just a repeat of the same lies they told in 1997 and 2002.

FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 23 Bealtaine/MAY 2007.



















FearFeasa Mac Léinn
Áth Cliath/Dublin, 23 Bealtaine/MAY 2007.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

WHO PLANNED DIVERSION OF LUAS
FROM CITY CENTRE DUBLIN?


When the LUAS street tramway was first proposed under CIÉ management, the line was to be a continuous run from Tallaght to Sandyford with only one service depot needed for the whole system. So, how did we end up with two separate lines, one crossing the city centre at O’Connell St. and the other coming to a dead end at Stephen’s Green, and the necessity to build two service depots instead of one?

Well, citizens, you can thank the Phoney Democrats once again for another botch-up of public transport planning in favour of ideological fantasies and against the interests of the citizens of Dublin which has characterised their behaviour throughout their period of being in government in this shambling FF/PD coalition of the past ten years.

When the Phoney Democrats and FF got back into power in 1997 plans were already underway by CIÉ for a single LUAS line, Tallaght to Dundrum, crossing O’Connell bridge to Stephen’s Green via College St. and Dawson St. Mary O’Rourke was appointed with the grandiose title of “Minister for Public Enterprise” and given responsibility for the state owned public transport utilities. Mrs O’Rourke halted all development of the LUAS line planning within weeks of taking office and went off on a tangent ordering a consultants report on running a tunnel through the city centre instead of the already agreed LUAS on-street line approved by the Rainbow Government. This wasn’t her own idea but came directly from the office of Phoney Democrat leader Mary Blarney and her special advisor Gerry Duggan who was previously an ESB official.

O’Rourke’s consultant’s report couldn’t present a case for abandoning the street tramway and was pulped the day after it was published costing the taxpayer I£250,000 at the time. However the baleful influence of Duggan and Mary Blarney had done the damage and the LUAS project was snatched from CIÉ and given to a new agency, the RPA, which was set up to counter the Trade Union influence in CIÉ and be more amenable to the FF/PD privatisation agenda. Duggan also interfered with the planning of the proposed rail-link to Dublin Airport eventually forcing CIÉ to abandon a direct link from Liffey Junction via Finglas to the Airport in favour of an impractical link from Howth Junction Dart station through Swords to the Airport. In his total ignorance of transport realities, Duggan failed to take into account the already crowded nature of the line from Howth Junction to Connolly Station which had to accommodate, Dart, Outer Suburban and Belfast Mainline trains and could not accommodate Airport trains as well without major additional tracks to make the line a four-track section between Howth Junction and Connolly.

Thus we have neither a joined up LUAS line in the city centre nor a rail-link to Dublin Airport due entirely to Phoney Democrat ideological posturing and downright incompetence in dealing with strategic transport planning for the capital city. As a reward for his incompetence, Duggan was appointed to the Board of CIÉ by this shambolic PD/FF bunch of clowns masquerading as a Government of Ireland. The opportunity now arises on 24th Bealtaine/May for the voters to give a much deserved cic sa tóin and P45’s to the whole lot of them.

FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 17 Bealtaine/May 2007.



Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The Dance of the
Sugarplum Fairy:

Probably the biggest distraction of the current General Election campaign in the Republic so far has been the dance routine of the Phoney Democrats as they didn’t say yes, didn’t say no, didn’t say stop, didn’t say go, as they pirouetted their way through the cluster bombs surrounding the path to the truth about Blank-Cheque Bertie’s extraordinary house finance arrangements, now before the Mahon Tribunal but, being leaked to the media in a calculated way by person or persons unknown. Caught off-guard by the leaks each time, the PD Fuhrer, Micilín Mac Doolittle, was forced to hire a telephone box in Kildare for an emergency meeting of the leading cabal of his 1% party on Saturday to discuss the latest revelations. Former leader Mary Harney, Liz O Donnell, Deputy Fuhrer, and PD El Presidente, Tom Parlon, reluctantly turned up to decide whether or not to stay on as Government partners with Blank-Cheque Bertie. Wrestling with their consciences, they won and apparently decided to stay on the Bertie bandwagon. Strangely, though, only Mac Doolittle appeared at the emergency Press Conference to make the announcement on Sunday.

Even more strangely, El Presidente Parsnip turned up on RTÉ television’s extended Sunday midday news programme in extremely grumpy mood at having to abandon his local canvassing for a cabal meeting in Mac Doolittle’s telephone box and failing to answer the questions of RTÉ’s Bryan Dobson who wanted to know whether the PD party were willing to vote for Ahern as Taoiseach after the election. Parsnip, who has the extreme brass-necked effrontery to re-name the Laois –Offaly constituency as “Parsnip Country”, spent his time on TV evading the issue and churlishly accusing the opposition of “dirty tricks” without a shred of evidence to back it up apart from a cryptic reference to “a leading member of Fine Gael told me that there would be explosive revelations on the 21st day of the election campaign”. This was greeted with derision by the opposition representatives, Ruairi Quinn(Labour), Brian Hayes(Fine Gael) and John Gormley(Green Party) and Dobson himself.

The story took a further twist yesterday as direct accusations by Noel Ahern, TD, brother of the Taoiseach, that the Grim Leaker was a member of Fine Gael “at high level” “But I don’t have evidence for that” were roundly condemned by the opposition party as representing a state of extreme paranoia within the Government party, Fianna Fáil. And who could blame them? With their “partners in government” waltzing to a different tune every day. The tune changed again today when Mac Doolittle revealed he had had a long chat with Blank-Cheque and Mary Blarney turned up on TV to announce she still had confidence in the Blank-Cheque supremo. And so, the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy goes on .. and on…. and on….


FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 09 Bealtaine/May 2007.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

BLANK CHEQUES, BLARNEY AND....
WHEN IS STAMP DUTY NOT STAMP DUTY?



When it’s cash and when Bertie’s fancy woman has it in her handbag, you might say. After months of dithering and doodling, Blank-Cheque Bertie finally called the date of the Republic’s General Election for May 24th early on Sunday morning when he slithered up to the Áras to ask Mrs Mac to sign the dissolution papers for the 29th Dáil. He could have gone any day last week and even announced it in the Dáil, but he chose to wait until the last hour before Mrs Mac left the country for her official visit to the USA.

Is it pure coincidence that the Mahon Tribunal, set up to investigate corruption allegations and bribes to certain politicians, was due to resume its sittings on Monday, Aibreán/April 30th, and was obliged to adjourn because of the calling of the general election? If the election had been called for later, June, for instance, which would have been still within the legal term of the government, there would have been weeks of hearings some of which might have required Bertie’s attendance, not the best thing to be flashed on television during the height of an election campaign.

The skeletons in the Fianna Failure closet are being rattled and the bones of the corrupt Haughey regime of the 1980’s are being exposed to sunlight for the first time and none of it is to Bertie’s advantage. He attached himself to Haughey as little Corporal Bootlick and handed over(as FF Party Treaurer) the blank cheques whenever the Emperor requested. He managed to avoid, until now, any suspicion of other involvements on a personal basis but, the revelations last year of the “Manchester Digout” have burst that balloon and this week’s further revelation of a £30,000 Sterling payment to Celia Larkin, his live-in partner at the time, for house “re-furbishing” on their rented house has opened up a new can of worms concerning Blank-Cheque Bertie’s personal finances.

At today’s FF launch of their manifesto, RTÉ Radio’s Vincent Browne stopped Blank Cheque in his tracks with persistent questioning on the bags of money issue to the utter chagrin of the assembled FF candidates and their groupies. Nothing of substance was forthcoming from the one-time “Teflon” Taoiseach.

Bertie’s clapped-out government
is now promising to do more things in the next five years than they promised to do in their previous ten years in office but failed to deliver; failed to improve the shambles in the health services, made it even more bureaucratic than before and are now embroiled in a serious dispute with the Nurses organisations; failed to deliver the promised affordable housing units to relieve the chronic shortage of accommodation in all major urban areas; failed to provide an integrated public transport system for the capital, mucked up the badly needed Luas tramway by deliberately preventing the link up between the two lines in the city centre which now requires to be done at much greater cost; failed to deliver the promised reduction in class sizes in schools and left many schools in shabby and deteriorating buildings all over the state; failed to deliver on promises to prioritise Community Development funding under the misnamed “Rapid” programme, about as rapid as a snail on prozac,

This miserable government, with its mouthy PD confederates, deserves only one response; a swift kick in the tóin and out of office on 24th Bealtaine/May.


FearFeasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin, 03 Bealtaine/May 2007.