The Socialist Party will be fighting both council and assembly elections next year and the party has agreed that I should stand in the next council elections in Enniskillen. In doing this our aim is to provide an uncompromising voice on behalf of local working class people in the chambers of power. The current political representation in Fermanagh is weak, ineffectual and often is simply absent. There’s a need for change, many people see today that government represents the interests of an international class of financial speculators at the expense of our own working class. But no-one appears to be fighting for this county and there’s certainly not anyone representing the working class areas of Enniskillen. Fermanagh is at the back of every queue for every decision and that was before the latest onslaught of cuts.
There’s a cosy-consensus at the heart of local government and our MLAs feel under no pressure to deliver. Every election it is the same thing, all the parties play at divisive politics but when they are elected they are as one in agreeing the cuts. Although that won’t stop them from making sure that they have their photos taken at the front-row of every protest against the same cuts.
Take the new Southwest Hospital. Such was the lack of political oversight that local doctors and businessmen had to come out to publicise what was happening; there was not a word from the local council. The reality is that as they do nothing, core services are being run down so that the new hospital will struggle to maintain its acute level status. We need to build a wider campaign for the hospital services we deserve and to safeguard local jobs and working conditions.
There is a jobs crisis in this county. Our unemployment is almost 12% higher than it was last year yet no-one is doing anything about it. Our politicians seem content to wring their hands and hope that ASDA and TESCO solve the problem. We need to be pressing for an emergency scheme of public works to provide meaningful and productive employment for local people rather than forcing them onto the dole. It’s not as if our schools don’t need leaking roofs fixed, pensioners’ houses don’t need insulation or our roads don’t need resurfaced – yet construction workers languish on the dole while those who caused the crisis reward themselves with bonuses of approximately £7 billion for this year alone. As one of the worst affected areas, Fermanagh should be leading a campaign to demand such a scheme.
A recently reported in the Impartial Reporter a leaked Department of Education report indicated that 47% (that’s just under one in every two) of primary schools and 81% of secondary schools in this county are on a secret ‘closure list’ yet our politicians have done nothing about it. We need to link campaigns together across the sectarian divide to save all our schools not allow them to be picked off one by one.
If I am elected I will use this position to expose what is really happening and the cosy-consensus that exists in the townhall, the decisions are made in private; all that needs brought into the light of day and opened to public scrutiny.
I guarantee my total support to all community campaigns against the closures, sell-offs and privatisations. We need to build a mass, cross-community opposition involving trade unions, local communities, the young and the old. History teaches us that only when workers get organised and make their campaigns political that change happens – we need to build that in Fermanagh.”
I am asking all those who agree with this alternative agenda to get involved in my campaign.
If you have an issue to raise or want to help our please contact me on my mobile at 07889087906.
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