In today’s climate of fear, economic recession, and the EU/IMF bailout, it is vital to put forward a “different vision” for our city and country, which “values our people as our greatest asset”.
This is the view Independent city councillor Catherine Connolly will be putting forward when she formally launches her Election 2011 campaign, to become an Independent Left TD for Galway West, in the Park House Hotel on Monday at 7pm.
Cllr Connolly said Ireland has nothing to gain from going “down the slash and burn road of the IMF” as such an approach “will stymie growth in the country and undermine our public health service”. She said society instead needs an equitable taxation policy.
“The situation cannot be allowed to continue where only a very small proportion of our wealthy citizens pay tax and yet the Government proposes to cut the minimum wage and reduce social welfare,” she said.
She is also calling for a new job creation policy as it “makes no sense” to allow the unemployment rate of more than 14 per cent to continue to rise. “It is not only demoralising for those unemployed but it makes no economic sense,” she said.
Cllr Connolly feels that a public building construction programme is a viable way of “kick-starting” the local economy.
“It would make a lot more sense for the Government to borrow money at low rates from the Central Bank and set out on a public buildings construction programme, including building the promised all Irish secondary school in Knocknacarra,”s he said. “Such a programme would ensure that revenue/tax is going into Government coffers and would give a clear message that people matter
