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THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT has voted in favour of a funding package that provides support for homeless services in member states, with a focus tackling food poverty.
The parliament has now signed off on the Fund for the European Aid to the most deprived package with Ireland’s funding increasing from €1.5 million a year to €3 million per annum.
Speaking to Karen Coleman of EP Radio today, Labour MEP Emer Costello, who led the team that put together the report the parliament voted on today, said the fund will help organisations dealing with people who are “living on the margins”.
She said the parliament made the programme a “people centred programme”. “They made sure that this programme is about reaching out to people and helping their reintegration back into society,” she said.
Costello said the increased funding for Ireland will be ” hugely valuable” to organisations, especially for those like the Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin which provides hot meals and food packages.
“And we know that so many organisations are particularly stretched because unfortunately there is an increased demand for the services of these organisations,” she added.
Better than nothing
Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy, who voted in favour of the package, said it is “better than nothing but much more is possible”.
He pointed out that the level of funding is low compared to the scale of the problem with 44.5 million people in Europe “severely materially deprived in 2011″.
Meanwhile poverty across Europe is rising rapidly. According to an Oxfam report, an additional 25 million people could be at risk of poverty by 2025 . The report also correctly points the responsibly of austerity for that increase, with the EU as a driving force, for this rise in poverty. At the same times the profits of major corporations is increasing.
“This allows the most deprived to some crumbs off the table,” he added. “Its better than nothing, but much more is necessary and much more is possible. It means breaking with neoliberal austerity and having real public investment.”
The full interview with Emer Costello can be heard here.
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We protect the € by shouldering 40% of the € debt, and they offer us soup for the soup kitchens for homeless.
Is there no indignity that the people of this ba$tard nation of ours won’t swallow before voting the whole rotten lot (and let them take their civil servants with them) out of office forever?
This happened before in our history when ‘liberal’ economics and diminution of sovereignty were at play.
Shame.
Don’t confuse the EU and the ECB, people in Ireland are CONSTANTLY doing that.
It’s ECB bodies that have been handing welfare to investors on our backs, ECB bodies that have been pushing for even more banking deregulation (and at a time like this!! MORONS!) and it’s the ECB pushing the failed austerity agenda.
EU bodies understand practical pragmatic economics and are generally pro stimuls and pro growth, they are also generally way more socially progressive. It’s the EU funding much of the LUAS extensions, and a huge chunk of the National Development Plans that built Luas, Dart Upgrade, the intercity motorways, the new rolling stock and busses etc.
EU bodies like the investment bank have been fighting this failed agenda from the get go, the only part of the EU that is still clinging to that stale agenda is the Commission president, and that’s because he’s elected in a back room not by the people of Europe as the top job in the EU should be, he lives in a bubble of rich lobbyists
Ryan, the E.I.B will loan Ireland half the money for the Luas extension. A loan that will be paid back with interest by the taxpayer.
The ECB are a private bank with no democratic process. ” Give me control of a nations money supply and i care not who makes it laws” – Nathan Rothschild.
Marc I know thats the case with this particular project, but most of the money given over the last 30 years was aid, not loans.
We don’t qualify for direct regional aid anymore because were more developed as a country now and there are 10 other countries now that need it more than we do who’s economy was stagnated by the bad policies of the USSR. We voted to let them in, and I recall many people saying we should give them the same things we got, so can’t complain about it now.
My point anyway was just not to confuse the ECB and the EU, they have very diff economic agendas.
Loans for a simulis project,…the multiplier effect they have on economic growth will more than cover the interest on that loan.
@ Ryan. What are you talking about? 10 other countries that need aid more than Ireland, that is a ridiculous statement or can you enlighten me by naming the 10 countries to which you refer. Further, we did not vote to let them in; we rejected both Nice and Lisbon only to be told our democratic vote would not be recognised and we should vote again.
As a child I heard about soup kitchen and though brought up in a working class family I thought this must be the as low as a human can be allowed to sink. The very fact that money is going to fund the soup kitchen instead of the fundamental problem of austerity speaks for itself. Teacher Enda Kenny and his cohort should hang their heads in shame that the fastest growing sector in Ireland is the soup kitchen. I heard all the fat cat politicians claim that there hard times ahead but it was not hard for them or their friends in high places. The spies here from Fine Gael and Labour will no doubt be running back to The Teacher and Tarnished but all they will do is laugh. I am sick of hearing/reading about people saying what a dump Ireland is; we are not a disgrace but we are being run by a disgraceful mob.
Emer Costello and her fellow over paid MEPs should be securing a living wage to all Europeans so they can feed themselves, if they would take their noses out of the troughs for while the would see a few crumbs from the fat cats table is not the solution to poverty , we need proper job’s not soup kitchens . I do agree it’s better than nothing but it’s just so cynical as we head to the European elections.
The EU does not have the power to create an EU wide minimum wage does it?
@ryan thankfully the EUSSR don’t have that power yet otherwise we would probably be locked up in gulags somewhere by now.
I have a personal rule to never use personal abuse at someone no matter how irritating they are because I beleive if you resort to that you loose the argument, every time someone says EUSSR I have to wrestle with the urge not to call them a moron…I’m sorry….but for Gods sake stop using that STUPID term.
The EU and the USSR are nothing alike, the USSR was an oppressive police state with a centrally planned economy where you could be put in prison for being critical of the govt.
The EU not only does not have a centrally planned economy it has pushed deregulation to the point of it becoming a danger to the stability of the economy, there is ffreedom of speech and protest in every EU state and the EU has been a major driver in civil and human rights in member states and abroad.
The only similarity is the EU directives which could be vaguely considered similar to Poliburo decrees…but not really because EU directives have to be co-passed by people we directly and indirectly elect and any member state can VETO major changes.
The EUs executive branch is lacking in sufficent democratic input and is captured by lobbyists…but they’re not the USSR even by the biggest stretch of definitions.
So please…stop making yourself look foolish by using that phrase.
A moron? Same could be said for you ryan. Spouting your pro EUSSR propaganda on here. Isn’t is great in the democratic EU that the only country that got to vote on a European constitution was Ireland? What about all the other countries? Changing the title to a treaty so other countries can’t get a vote is not democratic. What say had the people on austerity? Why is Europol (European police) being slowly given more & more secret powers. Overriding national sovereignty by creating a fictional European identity is straight out of the soviet handbook. I can see the early makings of a monster when I see it you obviously can’t or maybe you can.
Hoping Fth Kevin gets some of this money , it won’t go into his back pocket , only charity CEO who doesn’t take a salary , and gets the lowest funding from the state yet feeds the multitudes …
Agreed, Theresa. If La Costello thinks she is fooling anyone with this stunt she is mistaken.
Ryan if we look at the commercially owned european media who are using all their propaganda to support a gang of unelected oligarchs and neo nazis in Ukraine, who overthrew the govt there because it would not agree to an austerity binding EU deal, and who the Estonian and Czech governments have admitted through their own intelligence networks then shot their own protesters to oust Yanukovich, we can see quite clearly that the freedom of having a press is for those who own the press. Thankfully in Ireland we see some dissent among the SBP and a few other smaller commentators, economists, academics and publications etc. on the truth there. The EU and the good old USSA are after expansionism, more austerity and theft of resources and energy. And they want to encorach Russia on its’ borders too..hence the whole painting Russia’s boosting of its’ own treaty backed defense hub in a time of threatened EU military unionism as ‘an invasion’ of an area that is historically Russian anyways….
Lastly the EU only supports democracy when it suits them as we see re Ukraine, Turkey and Egypt where aid has been given by EU and USSA to gangsters, nazis, illegally funded rebels and even military dictatorship in the latter case.
I think we are being harsh on the soviet union there Graham. At least people then had jobs and food. The EU is far far worse. The Soviet Union was an experiment in economic planning, nothing to do with democracy naturally enough, but democracy in the modern sense is largely an illusion anyways except in places like Iceland, Switzerland etc. where there is some recall for direct democracy.
Why does the EU provide this funding when we have proper charities at home that won’t end up going to red tape and the wrong pocket?
The more I look at the EU, the more flaws I see in this centralised bureaucracy.
Oh another great stroke by Labour!
We give the EU 65 Billion and they treat us to rotten meat and vegetables for our impoverished citizens.
The post neo liberal social welfare system.
That’s great, however they should be stopped from feeding junkies. Save the food and money for people who deserve it
What a rat-like comment!!
Kick the guy at the bottom as if they were the cause of the problem, rather that the guy that’s laughing at you, me and every other workin stiff while collecting every penny of our USC!!
Get your head screwed on eh?
Ben listen to me mate…you’ll find as you go through life that you will make mistakes…some of them small some of them big…and some day you’ll make a really big one and you’ll feel that horrible sinking sensation that real serious primal sense that you’re in real trouble, in one way or another…no matter how privileged everyone has that moment (or moments) at some point.
Karma exists, God May or may not…I dunno..but the universe has balance and it’s own twisted sense of justice and when you come to that situation, beleive me, your odds at running into someone who will cut you slack and give you a second chance, verses someone who will burn you, are governed by how judgmental you were to other people in those situations.
Real serious sin murder etc is one thing…but we all make mistakes and none of us has the right to cast judgement on someone elses life.
In these situations if you find your thoughts being that dismissive, imagine the ‘junkie’ is your own child, your best friend, your sister or brother….YOURSELF…and then tell me…would you want that second chance? or would you want some judgemental pr1ck willing to let you die in the gutter?
Filthpig, you are hilariously stupid. Just because I don’t want to coddle junkies, you think I am a willing slave to the elite. I guarantee you I have researched and oppose them more than you. Here is a crazy idea for you. The world isn’t divided into two groups. How about you get your head screwed on and stop separating the world into black and white.
Ryan – I completely agree that a balance exists in the universe, however, there is no such thing as Karma. That is a ridiculous notion with nothing to back it up. If my friend was a junkie, I would stop being his friend. If my family was a junkie, I would tie him down and make him go cold turkey. I wouldn’t just stand by and feed him food and ask him if he is doing ok and coddle him like a child. You seem like a reasonable person, so how would you deal with them?
Emer Costello is not living on the margins . Herself and her husband Joe Costello earning over €250k a year between the 2 of them .
Considering the EU are one the Key players in causing this they should hang their heads in shame along witg FF , FG and the bankers.
All of you whinging about the EU where were you in the 00s when the French Dutch and ourselves rejected the current undemocratic make up and demanded a more democratic EU?
You were nowhere to be found, they repackaged the Constitution as a treaty so the French and Dutch would not have enough vote, the only one that had a vote was Paddy.
…and like a good little serf paddy bow’d and groveled before the coach as it passed by and said ”yes master, of course master” believing the lie that the treaty was some kind of stimulus package or jobs plan without bothering to actually check beyond looking at a poster.
Being forced to vote a second time & then rigging the votes for a yes can hardly be blamed on the Irish people.
You were forced to vote a second time you were not forced to vote the same WAY a second time.
The vote was not rigged, don’t be absurd.
Face it, the Irish electorate fell for a very obvious and easy lie
Instead of lying to yoursslves and saying the vote was rigged why not just do your best to be more engaged with the issues in future, don’t just trust was someone on the radio or tv tells you look into it. I know many of you out there don’t have a college students time and barely have time to breathe come the end of the work day with kids etc but you gotta try at least.
Don’t be so easily duped, think critically about things you are being told….I’m amazed that YES FOR JOBS thing worked I reallly am, did nobody think to check if it had a jobs programme in it?
Fluoride in the water pal, a dumbed down population cannot think freely and critically for itself.
You only have to look at the viewership figures of todays stories to realise what’s desperately wrong here, people are more interested in a story of a teenager slapping a fishmonger in the face with his own fish than the stories that should really matter to us all, I log into facebook and see a constant stream of fight club videos and other silly stuff yet the posts that entice healthy debate are largely ignored.
I seen the movie Idiocracy a good while ago and thought yeah fair enough 1% possibility of that happening in America maybe, more and more I’m starting to believe it will happen worldwide (at least the western world) before the century is out.
Your Preaching to the choir here Ryan & what’s so absurd about an election being rigged? You seem to think that it can never happen or something?
Speak for yourself, Carroll. I voted no.
Thanks Golden. I am gonna watch this film now. from the wiki read looks a must watch. I was always into dystopia films, as people should be scared into how gullible human society can be-we saw the disaster of nazism for example and how for every person intimidated there were at least two more brainwashed and/or made somehow complicit by the regime in the German nation’s crimes-I saw brave new world, 1984 etc. I see no reason why future society will not be dumbed down, especially with ongoing gadgetry designed to pacify people ie smartphones I gave mine up a while ago and you only notice how this affects people’s brains re their concentration when you look around you on a bus or train…or even people driving messing with their baubles..there will be some degree of terror and state surveillance ie with the drones we first saw in 1984 which are now even used by the Gards and PSNI in some cases..but the main weapon will be getting people to love their servitude. Thought will become a crime.
Thank you Germany
Can I have some more please
Electricity and utilitiy corporations are causing poverty. Allowing low income families and the elderly free electricity and water, would mean they would have enough money left over to feed themselves after paying the bills. I know I have said this many times before, but as many times as it needs to be said I will say it, until some effort is made to relieve the burden on the people who are paying the most and benefitting the least.
I’m surprised Murphy took his eyes off the Cacuses and Palestine long enough to notice what was happening in Ireland.
What type of soup
Romanians and homeless use this food bank.
Pump the money into homeless and social welfare.
I know its a horrible sweeping statement but let’s look at the people that needs to lower themselves to beg for food.
Go back to the problem and you have your solution.
There should be no homeless irish in Ireland and then foreigners in hotels with no cooking facilities.
This is who uses these places.
Open your eyes.
Its about numbers and what can Ireland give the E.U for more faceless money.oh I know soup kitchens.for the E.U problem.
You we’re all thinking it so don’t slam me.
YEAH stay out of our business Eurocrats!!!.. We don’t want your programmes which are beneficial to our most vulnerable, we want the sovereign right to neglect them ourselves!.. And you can shove your billions in agricultural subsidies, structural funds, common market and your Fascist/Communist (delete as appropriate) employment/consumer/environmental/human rights… us and our politicians will be just fine on our own!
Paul Murphy you are the problem not the solution. Just another idiot freeloader
Freeloader? He is the only MEP living on the wage of a regular young worker. Approx 23k net I believe. He’s also the only one who is actively using his position to fight against austerity, poverty and low paid yellow pack job schemes such as JobBridge.
Emer Costello well knows charity begins at sir didn’t old joe fix up her sister with judges job. Benefit fraud in that house 9000 euro weekly benefits for no work
See, all that money was worth it!
Have they improved the Wine List in these soup kitchens? Can’t beat a decent Chardonnay when you’re eating a nice, free 4-course dinner.
have your say