Time to repudiate the McCarthy Report on the sale of State Assets
Cllr. Ted Tynan, the Workers’ Party candidate in Cork North Central has said that the massive backlash against water charges and Irish Water had put the outgoing government’s privatisation plans seriously on the back foot but he feared these plans could be revived after the election.
Cllr. Ted Tynan
Councillor Tynan said that privatisation was still a firm policy of the establishment parties – Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour while being undertaken in Northern Ireland by Sinn Féin but the major parties were now afraid of the electorate. Voters had an opportunity in Friday’s election to take privatisation off the agenda for once and for all by voting out pro-privatisation candidates.
The Workers’ Party candidate said, “The McCarthy Report on the sale of state assets was a menu for the mass privatisation of Ireland’s state and semi-state companies such as the ESB, Bord Gáis, Coillte, Bord na Mona and the major commercial ports, including Cork. It is now vital that this report be torn up and a programme for the expansion and development of our state companies be implemented. This would provide a major boost to the economy as well as creating thousands of real, sustainable and well paid jobs”.
“The sale of our precious state assets and natural resources would be a disaster for this country. The best of them would be picked off by vulture capitalists leaving this country without key drivers of the economy and without vital public services. It would also ensure that prices for electricity, fuel, water and public transport would go through the roof. That’s why the Workers’ Party is demanding the repudiation of the McCarthy report and the shift of emphasis onto building a strong state sector”, said Cllr. Tynan