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Updated 10.35pm
TÁNAISTE JOAN BURTON has sharply criticised Sinn Féin this morning, saying that giving the party responsibility for the economy would be as bad as the country returning to the Troika bailout.
The new Labour leader was responding to Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’s claim last week that she was an “architect of austerity” who is no different to her predecessor Eamon Gilmore.
“In my view if people were to give control of the economy to Sinn Féin then they might as well hand the keys of the country back to the Troika,” she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
She said that the think-tank the ESRI had validated the government’s claim that core rates of social welfare have been protected over the last three years.
In a further attack on Sinn Féin she claimed that the party is “relentlessly opposed to any measures that help people back to work”.
“It’s almost as if they want a welfare economy rather than a working, vibrant economy,” she said.
The Tánaiste was speaking as Labour gathers for its parliamentary party think-in in Wexford today with the latest Red C opinion poll showing its support up one point.
Asked to highlight the difference between her and Eamon Gilmore, Burton said: ”We come from the same political party but I believe my focus has always been, both as an opposition TD, as a government minister, and now as leader is to to focus relentlessly on getting people back to work.”
On proposals for a ‘return-to-work dividend’ for parents who move off the social welfare system and into employment, Burton said it is a proposal that Fine Gael supports.
She explained: “I want to move to a situation where individuals and people with children move back to work.
“They get an additional incentive to tie them over the period when there’s a bit of uncertainty – moving from welfare to work – and they maintain extra supports.”
Burton said that the biggest difficulty facing people unemployed is being out of work long-term and having a “a gap in their CV”. She said the proposed scheme, likely to cost around €20 million, is “not hugely costly”.
Burton also said she would “of course” like to see Gilmore and another former Labour leader and ex-minister Pat Rabbitte run at the next general election.
She said both were dropped from Cabinet in the reshuffle last July as she was “anxious to include some of the younger members”.
Response
Sinn Féin Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald TD said that Burton’s comments are “an attempt to gloss over the Labour Party’s failure, in government, to deliver for ordinary people”.
Deputy McDonald said:
I am a confident that those people who have suffered under the Labour Party in government will see through Joan Burton’s attack on Sinn Féin. I think the Tánaiste’s comments were clearly designed to deflect from her party’s failure to deliver since entering coalition in 2011. I would assert that it is fairly disingenuous of the leader of the Labour Party to say that Sinn Féin wants to see a ‘welfare economy’ when we have time and again presented strategies and ideas for getting our people back to work.
“Joan Burton, as leader of the Labour Party, will face her first real test with the forthcoming budget,” said McDonald.
First published 9.45am
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Wow! Now even the bins are spying on us. All we need now is for public toilets to record all our “movements” and the colour of our underwear and big brother will know all it possibly could about us. Who needs privacy?!
Good one shirley, “movements” lol!!
They likely already do. Think about the movement activated flushes and the movement activated lights.
*may or may not be serious, I’ll let you decide.
Ha ha, nice one Shirley, what colour is your under pants indeed………?
Public toilets testing your ‘movements’ has been proposed to screen for health problems. I think it would be a great idea really, provided the information was confidentially passed to a smart phone or emailed to you.
What underpants? Commando is the only way to go in this weather!
Good one Shirley.
“Colour of your underwear”..hmm
What if….What if the bins refuse to stop collecting data?
And so it begins…..
I love London, it’s my 34th favorite place in the world to be.
You’re my 34th favourite poster on the Journal.ie
That’s the 27th time somebody has said that to me
It would never work here – no bins.
So why, with so much surveillance, can’t they find the idiots who damaged signals so the Dart is out of action this morning
Those bins are in London
My god why cant a bin just collect rubbish? What next, laptops that recycle your lunch waste!?
My emails are already intercepted by my laptop and smartphone. Shocking.
The difference between hits on a website and this scenario is people are aware of cookies on their computer and informed again each time they go into a new website. Ya wouldn’t really be expecting a bin to be spying on you. A whole new meaning to bin it your way.
and strictly speaking web-sites aren’t supposed to share this with one another .. which is the focus of the rather big “Do Not Track” privacy-debate that is currently ongoing on the web …
How are people going to know if its collecting their data already?
How is the average Joe going to know they are going to turn it on or off in any case?
The government possibly already has this technology in bloody street lamps and we don’t know about it!
government = your elected representatives who have a security mandate (for better or worse)
Renew = a private enterprise, who may or may not flip your identity over to any bidder if times get tough
So now they will throw the bins in the rubbish, like a Big Brother has been!
Spooooky I means
Well I know “THEY” are spying on me. “THEY” keep taking money out of my pay cheque whether I like it or not.
Almost darlik like…sooooooky!
Just for future reference, it’s dalek.
Minority report.
Maybe they want to collect the parts for recycling. It is a good idea because some parts of phone are radio active.
Read the article again there chap.
Yes. But the same level of surveillance exists here in Ireland
If you think we have the same level of surveillance as they have in the UK, especially London, you’re either seriously paranoid or you’ve never visited the neighbours.
Most, if not all phone masts, are fitted with surveillance equipment here
Have you even read the article ???
My post was for Francis
You couldn’t piss crooked without them knowing it.
Has bins..
It looks like a Dalek prototype.
WTF!?
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