Rally in support of Loughlinstown Accident and Emergency

A protest rally has been organised for Saturday 25^th February in opposition to the closure of the 24 hour accident and emergency department at St Columcille’s Hospital, Loughlinstown.

The rally has been organised by Save Our Services Wicklow in conjunction with my colleagues in Wicklow Sinn Féin.  It will assemble at 1.30pm at the Town Hall on Bray Main Street.

The loss of the 24 hour accident and emergency at Loughlinstown will be a severe blow, not just to the people of Wicklow but to the thousands of people from the Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown area who use its services every year.

I was there just last year when I had to bring my girlfriend in with what turned out to be very painful ovarian cysts.

The consequences of the closure of the 24 hour service will also have a knock on effect on the already over stretched St Vincent’s Hospital.

The closure is being dressed up as a reconfiguration that will remove people from the hospital trolleys in the corridors of Loughlinstown. The opposite is the case.  Cutting the A&E in Loughlinstown will simply compound the problems at St Vincent’s and will ultimately result in a deterioration in the level of service for patients and possibly deaths.

This is being done while billions of taxpayers’ money is being pumped into the defunct Anglo Irish Bank.  Just two weeks ago the government paid €1.25billion for an Anglo bond and €3.1billion is due to be paid to Anglo on the 31^st of March.

The government needs to get its priorities right.  The people need to stand up and demand a better way.

I hope to see a huge crowd in Bray on February 25^th.

The photo below shows my colleagues Councillor John Brady, Sorcha Nic Cormaic and I with others at a recent protest at St Columcille’s, Loughlinstown.

SPARK campaign visits Leinster House

A new campaign group called SPARK (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of our Kids) visited Leinster House last week to speak with Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh who is compiling a report for the Oireachtas Social Protection Committee on the proposed new single working age payment.

The single working age payment, if adopted by the government, would be the single biggest transformation of our social welfare system since the foundation of the state.  It proposes to do away with many special rules and schemes developed over the years to help some of the most vulnerable people in society, and to establish a single payment for every social welfare applicant from the age of 18 to 65.

In preparation for his report to the committee Deputy Ó Snodaigh is meeting as many groups and representatives and stakeholders as possible so that they can highlight their concerns and views and influence the report.

This is the reason SPARK were here last week.  A friend and colleague of mine, Grace Costigan, is part of the campaign and I had passed her details onto Ó Snodaigh’s Political Advisor with a recommendation that they be invited in for a meeting.

SPARK is a diverse group of single parents living in Ireland who have united together to protect their children from the radical policy changes introduced in Budget 2012.  They aim to raise awareness of the many challenges one-parent families currently face and to identify the essential supports needed to allow them equal participation in society.

They assert the rights of their children to be treated equally and demand acknowledgement and recognition of their family status. They actively challenge stereotyping of their families and oppose any economic, social, legal or political policies that have a detrimental effect on their children or on them as single parents.

They seek equality for children regardless of their family circumstances.

I wish them well in their campaign and look forward to Deputy Ó Snodaigh’s report.  It is vitally important that the most vulnerable sections of society such as the children of single parents, the unemployed and those with disabilities continue to be protected by our social welfare system.

The photo below shows myself and Deputy Ó Snodaigh with members of the SPARK campaign team at Leinster House.

I have also embedded a link to a youtube clip from Deputy Ó Snodaigh’s office which is essentially an ad seeking submissions to his report.

http://youtu.be/VuCPlNYJj28