P R E S S R E L E A S E – Monday January 7th, 2013 (.PDF downloadable here.)
The People’s Convention are hosting a Public Forum in Cork next Monday to discuss the payment of bonds costing over €2.5 billion, being paid in our name on behalf of Irish Life & Permanent.
Spokesperson Diarmaid Ó Cadhla asked why such a payment was being made when there was no responsibility to do so and no obligation to the Troika regarding these bonds.
Ó Cadhla asks “Why did we pay bondholders €20 billion last year? and why another €17 billion this year? What do we get? There has been almost no public discussion over this issue, the policy to pay was decided by an ‘inner circle’ and it is simply imposed on the citizens! This is not democracy!”
Irish people are suffering under severe austerity and our youth are being driven into emigration at the highest rate since the Famine – yet this enormous wealth is being given away!
As people emigrated and starved to death during the Famine, ships full of grain and other food sailed out beside them, food exported from Ireland! Today, the emigrant ‘ships’ are accompanied by bond payments paid from wealth extorted from the Irish people and our future generations.
Bondholder payments make the Government’s budget cuts look trivial in value. The Public Forum is to provide people with an opportunity to express themselves on this question of national and strategic importance. Ó Cadhla states that people must take responsibility to voice their view on such issues, because those with responsibility to represent us in Dáil Éireann do not do so – accepting instead a Party ‘whip’ or their own personal policies.
This year The Peoples Convention is encouraging citizens to consider making themselves available for selection as possible People’s Candidates, such selections will be made in public forum early in 2014 in preparation for the next elections. CPPC in Cork have declared that every seat in both the City and County Council areas should be contested by People’s Candidates.
Spokesperson Diarmaid Ó Cadhla said “we need candidates who will represent us, not any party, private club, ‘ism’ or themselves individually. If we are to resolve the problems in our democracy then we must stop handing over our mandate to anyone, we must retain it after elections and insist that representatives constantly refer to the people for specific mandate on all policy issues. This is the task to which CPPC has dedicated itself and which is both necessary and possible.”
It is obvious that none of the parties have solutions, their ‘experts’ get it wrong repeatedly, the missing element is the democratic decision making of the people, it is time for that change!
The event takes place on Patrick’s Street, Cork, on Monday 14th at 1pm, opposite the offices of Permanent TSB and all concerned individuals and organisations are invited to participate. Further information can be had through the website www.cppc.ie
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Notes: Last Oct 1st, CPPC organised a similar Public Forum outside AIB Bank on South Mall, Cork to mark the payment of a €1 billion bond by the people on their behalf, some photos attached.
One photo is Diarmaid Ó Cadhla speaking to media after the October 1st event on South Mall, Cork.
Other photo shows people assembled on South Mall, where 8 speakers were heard, including the Bank Borrowers Network, speakers from the Campaign Against Household Charges and others.
Contact Diarmaid Ó Cadhla on 086-3805005 for any direct comment.
