Cllr. Ted Tynan
The Workers’ Party has reacted sharply to the news that the Department of Social Protection is to get yet another name change and rebrand with a party councillor describing the decision as an expensive frivolity by a government that is obsessed by image.
Cork Workers’ Party Councillor Ted Tynan said that the move was inexplicable coming just over four years since the last rebrand in which some €7 million was spent on a new logo, signage and stationery by the department.
Cllr Tynan said the renaming of the department as the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection reflected a further change in the department’s mission from that of protecting the welfare of vulnerable citizens to being primarily focused on forcing people into low-paid and exploitative jobs.
“There is no need for this rebrand. It is unnecessary and is a waste of public money by a government which claims it is financially hard-pressed and uses terms such as ‘fiscal space’ to justify continuing austerity”, said Cllr. Tynan.
The Workers’ Party councillor concluded by saying that the name change would do nothing to deflect from the ongoing Public Service Card debacle or the housing crisis. “It is not the name over the door or on a departments’ letterheads that will be the measure of this government’s term but its increasing dilution of social protection in the true sense of the term and its reliance on image over substance”, said Cllr. Tynan.