Seamus McDonagh (WP)
Meath East Workers’ Party representative Seamus McDonagh has hit out at Junior Minister Damien English following the announcement that €18 million of taxpayers’ money is being spent on a new Geo-Science research unit at UCD.
Mr. McDonagh said that the announcement was a sop to the multi-nationals such as the oil & gas industry and the likes of Tara Mines who he accused of asset-stripping Ireland’s mineral wealth while paying not a red cent in taxes, royalties or dividends to the Irish state.
“Far from benefitting the Irish people, this centre will be used to promote further pilfering of this country’s precious natural resources ranging from natural gas to water. Whatever jobs may be created, and I suggest it will be very few, will be to the benefit of the multinationals and will amount to a further subsidy of the activities of outfits like Tara Mines whose employees continue to work in appalling conditions and with unfavourable payment rates and rights compared with their counterparts in other EU countries”, said McDonagh
The Workers’ Party representative said that Tara Mines and other such facilities should have created tens of thousands of long-term decent jobs in this country. Instead of stripping out our natural resources for export without a single downstream job in processing and subsidiary industries, they could have been developed as state industries which the massive profits instead going into the Irish economy.
He said the Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English, should be demanding that the multinationals in question fork out all of the cost of research and that it should be done for the benefit of the Irish taxpayers. “On top of that we see mention of water which is the latest and most vital natural resource to be turned into a commodity. The message should go out very firmly now to all comers to keep their hands off our water resource. That is why it is so important to beat the water charges and to demand the abolition of Irish Water which is nothing less than a vehicle for privatisation”, said Seamus McDonagh.