O'Cofaigh seeks date for return of full-time fire service for Enniskillen

Cross-Community Labour Councillor for Enniskillen Donal O'Cofaigh has written to the Chief Officer of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service to obtain a date when a full-time fire station will return to the county.

"I have written to NI Fire and Rescue Chief Officer Michael Graham to ask him when the full time complement will return to Enniskillen Fire Station.

"At the commencement of the COVID-19 lockdown, the full-time team based in Enniskillen was moved to Omagh. From firefighters themselves I understood this to be a short-term measure related to contingency planning around the pandemic. We recognised that there was relatively less risk on being dependent on part-time firefighters when most on-call firefighters were already at home but nonetheless it has been an issue that I've been closely monitoring.

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Given that now many more workers are returning to their workplaces continued reliance on part-time, call out responders poses very significantly more risk. Fermanagh is the most rural county in Northern Ireland - the distances involved can be huge. Reliance on part-time call out results in extra seconds and even minutes of delay for these workers to get to the station - that can mean all the difference. Like anywhere else, Fermanagh needs a full-time fire station. 

"There was no explanation or even notice offered to the public around the original decision but even less why and how long this measure needs to continue.

Only a few months ago I had to raise a defence of our full time service in the council - proposals to slash full-time cover were being brought forward at that time because of NI Executive cutbacks - we can’t want allow even deeper cuts to come through the backdoor with Covid-19 used as the excuse!", Cllr O'Cofaigh said.

Cuts to Acute Hospital will threaten Public Services in Enniskillen

The decision to cut the number of beds at the new acute hospital in Enniskillen to 269 rather than the original planned 315 which has been recently reported is a severe threat to the quality and nature of health provision in Enniskillen.

The loss of 43 beds will result in a further 50 nursing posts disappearing, impacting an economy already reeling from a collapse in private sector demand. The Western Health Trust is celebrating this “significant saving in nursing costs” and states that further savings will be made ‘by applying enhanced working efficiencies and the development of new roles’ – in plain language, that means nurses will be further pressurised and forced to cover for inadequate staffing levels.

The new hospital is being built through the expensive and wasteful private finance initiative or PFI; at dozens of other hospitals the use of PFI schemes has resulted directly in the loss of beds and nursing posts as the banks seek to maximise their profits. 

There is widespread concern that the new hospital will be more than suitable for outright privatisation in the future - its location along the border would make a large private hospital in Enniskillen highly lucrative for investors.

I believe that the hospital should be built with public money and be kept under full public control both now and in the future. 

The Assembly parties are implementing these Tory cuts instead of standing up for our communities and our public services. We need to build a campaign across all communities and stand with local nurses, doctors and other health service staff in defending public health provision.

Just as with the cuts to education, the home help service and special needs provision in this town, we need to build campaigns to force those in power to reverse course. That is the Socialist Party’s agenda in this election and will be my agenda as a member of Fermanagh District Council.

Socialist Party Launch in Enniskillen

I launched my campaign at an event attended by supporters in the Westville Hotel on Thursday 14^thApril. The event was chaired by Ciaran Mulholland, treasurer of the Socialist Party NI, and speaking was newly elected Dublin North Socialist Party TD, Clare Daly.

Clare spoke about the economic crisis in the Republic of Ireland and how ordinary people had suffered as a result of the decision to bailout bankers, speculators and bondholders. She pointed to the need for working people to campaign against these cuts and the need for social solidarity.

The following is a snippet from my speech at the event:

"There is already a threat hanging over services at the new hospital which hasn’t even been built yet; we lost obstetrics and gynaecology services for more than a month last year because they couldn’t find doctors to provide cover; half of our schools are under threat of closure and that was before the 15% cut to running costs and the 30% cut to capital budgets; classroom assistants are facing the axe leaving special needs children abandoned;  32,500 hours of home help has been slashed in Fermanagh this year alone; unemployment in Enniskillen has doubled in the last three years; our young people are having to emigrate, universities are becoming the preserve of the rich and we are threatened with even more public sector job losses. And all the mainstream political parties can do is focus on the need to reduce corporation at a cost of further job losses and public sector cuts!

"Our politicians are agreed on implementing the most severe cuts to public services since 1924; worse than anything Thatcher did. The parties are playing the same old divisive games ahead of these elections but once they are elected they will be joined at the hip implementing these cuts. Instead of implementing cuts, we need to build campaigns alongside the trade unions and communities to fight the cuts!

"They tell us that there is no alternative but it is estimated that the super rich get off with £120 billion in tax avoidance every year and they put £1 trillion into the banks in 2008 to bail them out. Yet there is not the money to employ much needed, newly qualified nurses in Northern Ireland and they have to emigrate to find work!

"The mainstream parties tell us that they have no choice that they must implement these cuts. But if our parties can only implement Westminster cuts, what is the point of the Stormont circus?

"If I am elected I will stand with every community to oppose these cuts and to demand a public works programme to create the jobs we need. We must build cross-community campaigns to stand for all public services so that they cannot implement austerity while playing one against the other as they have so many times before.



Canvassing Derrychara



"We are the only party who will be canvassing for votes in every estate in this town. Our campaign is already getting a good response. I believe we can achieve a great result in this election and I would ask you all to get involved in building opposition to these Tory-Stormont cuts!