Senators may claim to be “the bulwark against harsh and draconian cuts”, but this week showed they are “unwilling to stand up for workers, the unemployed, children, and the elderly”.
This is the view of Sinn Féin Galway senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, who was the only Galway senator to vote against the Social Welfare Bill, which was passed in Seanad Éireann, this week.
Sen Ó Clochartaigh condemned his fellow Galway senators - Labour’s Lorraine Higgins, Fine Gael’s Hildegarde Naughton, and Independent Michael Mullins - who voted for the Bill, for “failing to protect the people of the west from the cruel cuts contained in this Budget”.
He accused them of “seeing nothing wrong with cutting maternity benefits to new mothers that will force them to return to work early”.
“That no other Galway senator opposed them except myself is equally unacceptable,” he said. “During the recent referendum on the abolition of the Seanad, senators vigorously defended their role and proclaimed themselves to be the guardians of the people. The passage of the Social Welfare Bill by 32 votes to 17 proves this was empty rhetoric.”
