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DUBLIN SHOULD GET a dedicated Public Order Unit of An Garda Síochána to combat crime, according to Fianna Fáil.
The proposal was one of several put forward by the opposition party in their election plan for Dublin, ‘A Vibrant Capital’.
The document also proposes “substantially reduced or eliminated” parking fees on certain evenings, an underground DART, improving the water quality in the River Liffey, and the pedestrianisation of certain areas in Dublin including Merrion Square and Molesworth Street.
Speaking at the launch, party leader Micheál Martin admitted that Fianna Fáil are “starting well behind the others” in May’s elections but said the process would “begin the recovery of the party”.
“This is an election where the excuse of blaming others is of no use to Fine Gael and Labour … it’s 24 years since Fianna Fáil held a majority on any of the councils in Dublin,” Martin stated.
He said that Mary Fitzpatrick, the party’s European candidate in Dublin, “represents much of what is new about the party in the capital”. He denied that his leadership would be at stake if she failed to win a seat.
We’re going to give it one hell of a fight … The membership is up, the party is in a healthier state that we have been in Dublin for a long time.
Fitzpatrick said that crime in the city needed to be addressed immeditately. “It damages business, it damages Dublin as a tourist destination and it damages Dublin as a place people want to live.”
She added that there was a “sophisticated international element to the crime we see on our streets” and said that guards should be given the resources they need to tackle it.
The MEP candidate went on to descirbe Irish Water as a “super quango”.
She noted that 99 per cent of the water available in Dublin was used every day and said water charges were not being intreoduced as a “conservative meaure” as claimed by the government.
It’s just another tax. A tax for a service that hasn’t been improved.
Martin said the implementation of the Local Property Tax had caused “immense anger and damage” as it had “no linkage with ability to pay”.
He said that all Fianna Fáil council members would vote to reduce the tax by 15 per cent when afforded this chance in September.
He also criticised the government’s plan to provide GP care for under 6s, saying it was “not credible” to implement while elderly and sick people continued to lose their medical cards.
People are very angry about the health situation and medical cards in particular.
Martin said that the party’s candidate for the Dublin West by-election would be chosen at a selection convention next week.
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I didn’t need to read that I read the headline….. pay up.
@John Hayes: Here’s me after reading the whole article agreeing with you John..
@Paul Gorry: sorry Paul I never jump in but unfortunately this is one of those times. These people have suffered enough.
@John Hayes: absolutely agree with you John.
@John Hayes: Agree 100%
@John Hayes: Show me the MONEY!
Whilst everyone can agree that the survivors should be looked after mentally and financially I do not believe that it should be paid for by the state. It was not the state that sent them into these institutions and it was not the state that ran them. The church got away with paying all of the money into the redress funds for what they did to children and so now must be held solely liable for any financial cost these survivors.
@lorcmulv: Even here in Germany it is well known that the church and the Irish Government were in this together. The state financed it while the church executed it. And yes…. lets not forget the ordinary people. They facilitated it with their shame
@lorcmulv: I agree, additionally it was men who got them pregnant and deserted them. They are liable, as are their own families who put them in their. The church is responsible for the bad treatment but not the state
@lorcmulv: I agree, additionally it was men who got them pregnant and deserted them. They are liable, as are their own families who put them in their. The church is responsible for the bad treatment but not the state government
@lorcmulv:The state knew what was going on and did not do anything about it.So church and state to blame.
@Johannes Baader: They would not have; ‘Shame’ but because of the Catholic Church , Church made the community ashamed of having a Girl among them having a Baby, outside wedlock. The Catholic Church ruled through fear, and shame, and naming people from the altar, after this; a person so shamed would loose their job, and not get work anymore in that community of Fear. The founder of Christianity Jesus was merciful and loving, he knew what it was like to be marginalized he was rejected, his mother Mary Conceived Jesus outside Wedlock, she would have experienced Fear in that situation until Joseph Married her.
Growing up in such a Community the Mother would have to depend on the charity of those people influenced by the Catholic Church. I am so glad they no longer have that control of minds.
@lorcmulv: whilst I see your point and agree on some level, personally I would struggle to separate or disentangle church from state with particular reference to the 1940’s through to the 1980’s. In recent decades the stranglehold of the church on Irish people has dissipated significantly, but for me there is no way that a nation of people so heavily cowed by the power of the Catholic God almighty, so mired and immersed in the fear and shame that breaking Gods holy rule brought, could be governed independent of Church involvement or influence
@Tom’s: and it was the men that got them pregnant in first place so why not sue sue the descendants of these men – that is the same as making the current taxpayer pay for what happened over 50 years ago.
It’s time the catholic church sold off their enormous property portfolio and paid up. Happy Easter boys!
@merely ed: we live in hope merely.
@Paul Gorry: They were poor mouthing the other day about money not coming in.
@David Corrigan: I find it funny that they can come out and have the poor mouth, when their boss in room literally sits on a gold throne, with more security to protect him than Biden does as US president, I mean they literally have their own city and complain cos covid has cut back on the collection plate….id say if they even sold off a third of their assets in Ireland they could pay victims, be sorted during covid and still have money left over for a new car
@merely ed: Dr Michael Woods of Fianna Fail signed a legal agreement with the Catholic Church to limit its liability and commit Irish taxpayers to pay all the bills. If any other Gov did a deal like that to cover up the abuse of innocents there would be public outcry, police investigations and jail for the corrupt. Irish people prefer to not know.
@David Corrigan: Pope asking for the Cardinals to take a pay cut from their Salary Of; € 5,000 a month.
What about them asking their own families who put them there – for compensation? The families and the church were in cahoots.
What about the men who got them pregnant and abandoned these women and their children. They are liable, not the state.
@Bleurgh: I am adopted. The church and the state contributed to my community’s mistreatment. The fact that government depts like the dept of foreign affairs organised so many passports for children to be trafficked, that it was reported on in national, US and German newspapers, is evidence alone that the State was directly involved.
Also the institution I was in was infamous as being a place where vaccine trials, drug trials and food/formula trials were conducted on us unaccompanied infants, mostly by British pharmaceutical companies and Irish universities. Ultimately whose responsibility was this? As I and other children were ‘wards of the State’, then the Irish State was responsible at the time and remains responsible still for this illegal and unethical experimentation and negligence.
@akaalison: whilst every compassion can be afforded to you as a survivor the brass tacks are that the majority of mothers got pregnant and the fathers wanted no more to do with the mothers of their children and the mothers own family forced them into these institutions out of some sense of shame fuelled by the church. The church ran the institutions and whilst the state had to be involved in some sort of collision – that was the state of government then and to maintain that the current taxpayer is solely financially liable is not fair or reasonable. A way should be found to make the families that put these women and children into these homes pay, as well as the fathers along with the church who ran the homes pay the majority of any financial costs.
@lorcmulv: so you can afford me compassion, but not redress!?!
And no one said “that the current taxpayer is solely financially liable”. The article doesn’t even hint at that.
Anyone responsible including the State, the religious orders, the State inspectors, the Adoption Board, the adoption agencies, the social workers, the private nursing homes, the county councils, the nuns, priests, bishops & archbishops, those who discarded babies & mothers bodies, the medical schools who used bodies as cadavers, the TD’s, the pharmaceutical companies, the universities, the hospitals, the deceptive medics (DeValera), the staff of institutions, the aircraft carriers who trafficked the ‘Banished Babies’.
ALL who were responsible &/or were complicit by doing nothing should be held accountable
…finally!
The state should pay some compensation and fully acknowledge the disgraceful atrocities that occurred at the mother and baby homes, but the pressure should be put on religious orders to pay up for not just this but other disgraceful acts they have been found to have been involved in…..and if they don’t do it, either start taking them and use the money to pay the compensation via the state or send in CAB and seize assets to sell off
FG/FF allowed this infanticide and slave labour to happen, for around 80 years.
So while the state oversaw this, it is the Church wealth that should be repossessed to compensate as they had a stranglehold on “Catholic Ireland” with their ‘purity’ views from a ‘holy’ book filled with atrocities.
Trials, repossessions and disband them.
Shame on the Roman Catholic Church & Government of the day. The Catholic Church can’t step any lower in the eyes of many people. The Catholic Church is already selling off property in secret and moving the funds.
Hi, can someone answer this for me please. At the time of the adoptions, were the actions (save for those cases where birth certs were altered) of the authorities/facilitators legal?
@Susan Keane: we don’t know. I’m adopted and am actively prevented knowing most of my info. For example, did my birth mother give informed consent to my adoption? Was I taken from my birth mother before the waiting period for full consent had elapsed? Was my birth mother informed of her entitlement to withdraw her initial consent? Was I forcibly taken or without her choice? Was I used as a guinea pig, unlawfully and unethically in vaccine trials, drug trials and food/formula trials while I was in an institution as ‘a ward of the State’?
Who was charged with my “care” and were they adults. Were they qualified to care for vulnerable children? Was I neglected, abused or did I receive medical attention for an incidents and/or accidents?
And there are MANY, MANY, more questions.
@akaalison: I also was adopted and always wonder about the same questions.And I know I was with my adopted family within around six weeks of my birth when legally you couldn’t adopt a child until the child was at least six months old.
As an adoptee who was in St Patrick’s home, I am deeply, deeply offended by the headline on this article.
What a ro**n headline trying to make survivors look like money grabbers!
The church was responsible for sending women who had their children taken from them, if they weren’t adopted they were placed in orphanages. They didn’t give their consent to have their children used as guinea pigs, no consent was sought from their parents it was illegal, A lot of children were made wards of court by the state, If a child lost a parent the state would take the child/children away from their surviving parent usually their fathers, so the state was responsible for their welfare. The state should compensate them
ask the state to pay, what? ask your real families to pay, they gave u away
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