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SOCIALIST RUTH COPPINGER has said it can be difficult for independents and members of smaller parties to have their voices heard in the Dáil.
Coppinger, who was elected as a TD for Dublin West in a by-election last month, told TheJournal.ie that it can be frustrating to deal with the “stage-managed” nature of Irish politics.
The most frustrating thing is it’s very much set pieces, stage-managed. The big parties obviously have the big say. It’s more difficult for small parties or individuals to speak.
Coppinger said that the formation of the Technical Group has “somewhat” improved this situation.
She said there are “a couple of issues that I’ve tried to get my teeth into”, particularly homelessness.
The Socialist TD has been vocal in her criticism against the government’s Housing Bill, which she says will “completely and utterly fail” and lead to more families entering into emergency accommodation. Housing minister Jan O’Sullivan has rebuked these claims.
Coppinger has called on the government to use money from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to help deal with the current homeless “epidemic”.
When speaking about mother and baby homes in the Dáil last week, Coppinger noted: “Today, mothers and babies are not shunned and hidden away, but I put it to the [Children's] Minister [Charlie Flanagan] that the current epidemic of homelessness is making victims of mothers and babies, particularly single mothers and their babies, which is resulting in serious mental and physical health problems for the women and their children.
They are being affected by cuts in child benefit, rent allowance and a host of supports that allow them to make a life for themselves and for their families.
Coppinger told Flanagan that the “crime and shame of direct provision for asylum seekers” also needs to be addressed.
“I try to highlight how [the government is] treating mothers and babies now with austerity, with what hass been heaped on families, with the homeless situation,” she told us.
I don’t consider the Dáil to be the be-all and end-all. Obviously I’ll try to make as much of an impact in there as I can, but it’s also what you do outside.
Her Socialist colleague and fellow Dublin West TD Joe Higgins was yesterday announced as independent TD Stephen Donnelly’s replacement on the Oireachtas banking inquiry.
Coppinger said that the government’s addition of two senators to the inquiry committee to ensure it had a majority was a “cynical manoeuvre” that had “backfired”.
“The banking inquiry should have representatives of the people who have been affected by the banking system and the banking scandals: mortgage holders, people in negative equity, communities … bank workers. Why should it be a host of politicians, most of whose parties were there throughout the crisis and oversaw the crisis?”
Is it likely that the banking inquiry, ruled by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, is going to come up with anything that’s going to implicate their own parties? I doubt it very much.
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Imagine how much we could increase the wages of nurses, teachers and gardaí if we didn’t piss away $9billion on housing economic migrants and NGOs.
@Tom Barry: they prefer looking after economic migrants more than there own citizens nowadays it is actually disgraceful tbh even more so on people who keep voting these in we really need a government that looks after our own PROBLEMS first and foremost before they start looking after everybody else simple
@Happy As Larry: Be sure to let us know once our own problems are sorted so that we can move on to other pressing matters
@Happy As Larry: It’s an awful pity a lot of ‘our own’ can’t look after themselves…..full employment and there are still huge numbers that couldn’t be bothered working and want to be looked after from the cradle to the grave….also never mind the live register of unemployment,the won’t work/will never work are not on those numbers.
@SYaxJ2Ts: Hi Kev, is it really the states duty to deal with any issues except it’s own? Charity should be up to the public, spending there own money as they chose and if that’s to help others less well off in other countries, fair play. Charity should not be something that is mandated by the state at the tax payers expense.
@John Terry: i completely agree, dublin teens openin their legs and bang free gaf, then they move the father of the future sponge in and still claim single parents along with rent, elecy, gas allowances and money to spend for the week on top of that, i know one getting over 600 a week AFTER her rent and bills are paid as a lone parent with the father of the baby living with ber
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it s: ….lol,so it’s only Dublin teens?….
@John Terry: how can there be full employment AND huge numbers of people not working… the makes absolutely no sense. It’s one or the other
Sounds like the Government is dragging its feet in the hope that inflation falls further soon.
Inflation may be coming down Éamon Ryan but prices are not, so don’t see how you maintain its good, people’s wages did not go up in line with inflation
@andy murphy: someone is clueless about economics lol
Wow! I’m shocked, this government wouldn’t lie straight in the bed. What a shower of wasters!
Nothing short of disgraceful inflation reduction has very little to do with gov policy but suddenly a bargaining tool that was not used in the last talks shame on you
Having negotiated salary increases over the last two years that were way behind inflation the unions are once again playing a blinder in helping the govt reduce people’s wages in real terms. Would be really interesting to see if these union negotiators end up being rewarded in the future with payments from govt in the form of board positions on various quangos. The old imno head retired on a pension way above what nurses get and was also rewarded with payed seat on a lucrative quango for those on it. This for ensuring nurses pay kept well below what it should be, Sile is carrying on where he left off
It is depressing to see people who post blaming immigrants for all our ills. Dragging out wage negotiations for public service workers was going on for years, long before we had the large number of immigrants.
Journal is a joke you can’t leave a comment on a serious issue graham lennihan is mostly correct why can’t we say it like it is im a male I wasn’t sure as I child I had to become happy with life allow children to develop and decide stop this pressure
@Philip Johnson: and yet here you are, leaving a comment that your claiming your not allowed to make
@Philip Johnson: GL is even less correct than your English.
Any pay increases should be tied to serious reform of working practices/contracts and especially accountability. The quality of our public services vs the money we pump into it is dismal.
Pantomime……
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