Parties should not be playing blame game
ALL political parties big and small and many Independents are lining up to persuade us to vote for them. Fair enough, but please don’t make the homeless and hospital patients cannon fodder or political footballs.
It is true we have both homelessness and healthcare problems that need resolving. But it is important to be aware of why we have these problems rather than using the issues to attack other political parties.
Homelessness is there because we do not have enough homes for people who need them. This is directly because not enough houses have been built in the last 12 years. The responsible parties are the banks who ruined our economy. They were ably encouraged to carry on their reckless lending during the Tiger years by political parties in power who revelled in the tax take from stamp duty, VAT and profits tax to further their political welfare.
The funds freeze that followed put a halt to the building of homes, solely to get the banks back to profitability.
A government that did not include these needs in the deals with Europe is partially to blame for bowing to the demands of banking organisations and ignoring national and human needs.
Hospitals are a similar issue. We now have a population of almost five million people with a health service geared for a population of 3.5million. Add in a 35% increase in an ‘older’ patient base and we are under-provided-for by the equivalent of a virtually overnight doubling of our population.
The frontline staff are worked off their feet on 12-hour shifts, to cover the work that requires at least a 50% increase in staffing, but also needs the buildings to house the extra patients and staff.
This facility shortage is also a result of the non-funding of infrastructure and capital building as a result of the same starvation of funds by the banks’ collapse.
All parties are to blame. Fianna Fáil, aided by the Progressive Democrats and the Greens, ‘caused’ the collapse of the economy. Fine Gael and Labour failed to protect the community while restoring the banks to profitability at the behest of the ECB.
And Sinn Féin did nothing to prevent Brexit by not representing its constituents and kept the Tories in power by abstaining from Westminster when they should have been there for all their constituents and the national welfare they claim to uphold. What’s left? Not a lot.
So, please, political parties, concentrate on curing our problems, not blaming others. You’re all to blame in some way. And be aware, the cure is going to cost money, lots of taxpayers’ money. There is no place for giveaways. We just don’t have the money for that.
JOHN COLGAN, Dublin 15.
Leave landlords alone
NOW the election has been called, get ready for vitriol, hatred, slander and downright libel against private landlords, and that’s only the election posters of many candidates to begin with.
Landlords are fair game already, but a general election brings out the worst in everybody who has a gripe. Is it because other equally legitimate businesses are more liable to sue, so are best avoided? ROBERT SULLIVAN,
Bantry, Co. Cork.
China’s Trump dig
I WATCHED Donald Trump telling the world the trade deal he’s just signed with China is great.
He has missed the insult from Chinese president Xi Jinping, who didn’t travel to America to sign the deal himself – he sent his vice president. If the deal is so important to the Chinese, surely he would have endorsed it himself.
MARTIN STRINGER, Barnacogue, Co. Mayo.