SINN FÉIN DEMAND THAT FIANNA FÁIL SORT OUT THE STUDENTS GRANTS CRISIS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE

Students will be forced to drop out of college due to grants chaos

Conor Kelly, Sinn Féin representative for the Swords area, has criticised the Minister for Education and Science Batt O’Keeffe for failing to intervene in the current students' grant crisis. This situation means that many third level students across the country will now have to wait until January to receive their student grant payment and these students are unregistered and are being left without access to many services in the colleges.

Conor Kelly spoke with Peter Mannion the Union of Students in Ireland president who confirmed that there are cases of students from Fingal who have still not received the maintanence grants that they are entitled to. This problem has been caused by the current economic crisis leading to an unprecedented rise in applications for third level maintenance grants. This has then combined with the block on public service recruitment and has led to understaffing in various VEC's and County Council's. As a result many of the students applying for these grants will now not receive them until January 2010. This is a ludicrous situation and one with massive consequences for students.

Peter Mannion pointed out that many students have been unable to register and as a consequence will be unable to sit their mid-term examinations starting next week. They will not have been issued a student number and will be unable to access many essential facilities in the college.

More worryingly is the fact the many students depend on this grant and without it have no alternative but to drop out of college altogether and join the rest of the country on the dole queues. This is causing real
distress to students and families across the county and will ultimately have a negative effect on the economy. It is no suprise therefore that students from UCD today have occuppied Wicklow Council and demanded they receive the grants that they are legally entitled to.

Conor Kelly emphasised that the facts are that the Higher Student Grant scheme has been dumped onto local Councils by the Department of Education without the resources required to deliver it. Furthermore, local authorities and student unions have repeatedly warned the Government and the Department of Education that they need to reform the grants system but these appeals have fallen on deaf ears.

The Government must take full responsibility for these delays and deploy emergency resources to ensure that no families or students miss out on their third level education.

A toxic dump in the middle of the best agricultural land in Ireland, no local Green Party TD would allow that, or would they?

Fergus Byrne, Sinn Féin representative for the Balbriggan area, expressed his anger at An Bord Pleanála decision to give the green light for a controversial new landfill at Nevitt, Lusk, Co Dublin. He said, “This is yet another blow to the local community in North County Dublin and especially those trying to promote and develop the agricultural sector in the region. For years now The Nevitt Lusk Action Group have fought this plan and they have highlighted that Fingal County Council's own consultant’s have confirmed the Nevitt aquifer as a future water supply for the area. Given this fact I ask anybody to tell me how it can make sense to place a toxic dump right in the middle of such a water supply for an area that is famous throughout the country for producing food!”

We in Sinn Féin would like to put on record that we feel this decision simply does not make any sense what so ever. At this time all those involved in the agricultural sector are struggling to compete with cheap food imports and as a result jobs are under threat or being lost. However, one of the advantages that Irish farmers have is our country’s reputation for producing quality HEALTHY food products. This is a market advantage we must build on to grow this sector of the economy, increase exports and secure jobs. So what happens? Bord Pleanála decide to put a toxic dump in the middle of the best agricultural land in Ireland! This is clearly MADNESS!!!

Fergus Byrne further stated that local people should demand that Trevor Sargent take action now to stop this development. He said, “What is the point in having the Green Party in government, and an ex Green Party leader as our local TD, if he won’t do anything to protect the environment and agricultural jobs in our area. I would encourage everybody to contact Trevor ASAP and let him know that we demand he do something to prevent a toxic dump being located in the heartland of Irish agriculture. It is only by people putting pressure on now that this disastrous decision can be reversed.”

The contact details for Trevor Sargent are as follows. His office number 01 8900 360, or you can leave a comment on his website www.trevorsargent.ie or go along to his clinic in Balbriggan, Friday evenings, 7.00-7.30pm: Hamilton Room, 2nd floor, Town Hall, Balbriggan, or Swords, Saturday mornings, 10.00-10.30am: Constituency office, 2 Glebeview, Rivermall (off Main St. - adjacent to Wise Owl Bookshop), Swords.

Sinn Féin demands an end to self assessed performance related bonuses such as the €70,000 awarded to HSE Chief Executive Brendan Drumm

Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh called for legislation to bring an end to self assessed performance related bonuses such as the €70,000 awarded to HSE Chief Executive Brendan Drumm.

Speaking this afternoon after his Dáil engagement with the Tánaiste Deputy Ó Snodaigh said:

“Tánaiste Mary Coughlan has given a commitment that no bonuses will be paid out for the period covering 2008 and 2009. This, quite simply, is not good enough. These types of grossly excessive and unwarranted payments must be consigned to the past with the rest of Fianna Fáil’s economic concepts.

“People in my constituency and throughout Ireland are disgusted to hear of the €70,000 payment to Brendan Drumm for his role in overseeing the destruction of our public hospital network.

“At Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin many children are waiting for urgent operations as the resources are not forthcoming to deal with demand. Yet this Government feels justified in paying Brendan Drumm, a public servant on a higher salary than the Taoiseach, €70,000 in a bonus payment.

“Brendan Drumm should be ashamed to look for a bonus when sick children are having urgent operations cancelled. It symbolizes everything that is rotten with this state.

“This money and the monies from other excessive bonus payments to health service managers should be put into frontline services. Suspending these payments is not good enough. Legislation must be amended to ensure that these grossly excessive payments are never again permitted.”

Aer Lingus job losses - the government cannot and must not stand idly by!

Speaking to the Fingal Independent today the Sinn Féin representative for Swords Conor Kelly has expressed his concerns at the prospect of yet more massive jobs losses for the north county in the wake of cost-cutting plans announced at Aer Lingus.

http://www.fingal-independent.ie/news/massive-loss-1912062.html

Mr Kelly said: 'After the loss of 1,200 jobs at SR Techinics early in this year, we now face another 676 jobs to be lost at Aer Lingus.

'North Dublin has suffered greatly over the past year with the closure of SRT, while it must be said, the Government seemed happy to sit idly by and done nothing to save the company or the 1,200 jobs it provided.'

The local Sinn Féin representative said: ' We simply cannot afford a repeat of that Government inaction.

' The key to any recovery is not massive job losses, but rather to keep employment high. A concept that sadly seems to be lost on this Government.'

Leas Cross Report "released under a smokescreen”

Sinn Féin’s Swords representative Conor Kelly has described as "cynical in the extreme" the decision of the Health Minister Mary Harney to publish the report on the Leas Cross nursing home on the same day as the publication of the 'Bord Snip' report.

Kelly said:

“Minister Harney chose to publish the Leas Cross report under the smokescreen of the publication of the Bord Snip report on the same day.

This is cynical in the extreme and does a disservice to the report itself and to the many nursing home residents and families across the country who had been awaiting the report and who are anxious to see the badly needed implementation of major improvements in monitoring and inspection of nursing homes.

“The report highlights the totally inadequate inspection system which
allowed the neglect of Swords people in Leas Cross to happen. It took a media
investigation to expose the facts that the HSE had failed to find or
chose to ignore. All the lessons of this report must be learned and
implemented.”

Kelly welcomes Swords drug seizure

Sinn Fein’s Swords Representative Conor Kelly has welcomed the seizure of a significant amount of drugs in Swords which included over €2.4m worth of cannabis. Kelly said the continued use of Cannabis in the Dublin drug scene is a major concern that needs to be tackled head on with all available resources.

Speaking today Kelly said, “Last night’s seizure of drugs in Swords is a welcome development and I congratulate those officers involved in the successful operation.

“Experience tells us that economic recessions are usually followed by a drugs crisis. It is therefore essential that the Government makes a significant investment in the fight against drugs, and it is economically prudent to do so. In fact we cannot afford not to.”

Kelly Challenges North Dublin TDs and Senators Print their Expenses in this paper in the coming weeks

Tom O’Higgins the chairman of the House Of The Oireachtas Audit Committee and former senior partner at Price Waterhouse Coopers a man who’s CV is full of impeccable international credentials is due to resign. He has been trying unsuccessfully to reform TDs and Senators expenses in his position but has been blocked continuously by the slimy greed that makes up the establishment.

His key demands are:
 Introduction of vouched expenses for TD’s and Senators.

 Annual Cap on the amount of expenses any TD or Senator can pocket.


Failure to implement even these reasonable demands shows the height of the problem we face. His continued attempts at reform have lacked support even though Finance Minister Brian Lenihan called for all TDs and Senators to lead by example in taking financial pain.

I feel that Tom O’Higgins failure to find support for these reform measures from our TD’s and Senators shows the amount of greed, corruption and wealth that is to be found in the corridors of power. This tempts me to ask the question what do these guys have to hide?

I personally think they have something to hide given the fact that three of the last four Taoisigh have ended up in front of the planning tribunals been accused of corrupt practices.

So I challenge our North Dublin TD’s to print their expenses in this Local news paper in the coming weeks and show us if they are implementing Tom O’Higgins key demands regarding expenses and whether or not they are playing their part just like the rest of us in these hard times.