Disappointment as Wicklow TD Stephen Donnelly joins the Government and says Yes to Austerity

Sinn Féin county councillor John Brady has expressed bitter
disappointment at Wicklow TD Stephen Donnelly's announcement at a
public meeting in Bray that he is voting yes to the European Fiscal
Treaty on May 31st. The result is that all 5 Wicklow TD's support the
Austerity Treaty.

Speaking following the public meeting in Bray which Stephen Donnelly
had organised Sinn Féin councillor John Brady said "I am bitterly
disappointed that Wicklow now has no opposition TD's standing up for
the people of Wicklow who are getting hammered with stealth charges,
taxes and cuts. Deputy Donnelly's admission at the public meeting last
night that he will reluctantly vote yes for the Austerity Treaty means
that he like the 4 government TD's believe that Austerity works.
However this is clearly not the case, since the people of Ireland
where hoodwinked into voting yes to the Lisbon Treaty 170,000 jobs
have been lost, last year 76,000 people emigrated, public services
have been slashed and new stealth taxes are been forced on the people.
If austerity worked we would be out of this mess, the bottom line is
austerity does not work it just further deflates the economy and hits
those with less harder"

Cllr Brady continued “The dreadful social consequences of austerity
are to be found in the numbers of citizens unemployed; the thousands
of our young people who are emigrating; in every household struggling
to pay rent and mortgages and household bills; on every main street
where businesses are shutting down; and in every hospital and school
where reduced resources are hurting the sick and the young. More than
100,000 households are currently in mortgage distress with 91 more
joining that number each day. This is unacceptable.

Cllr Brady went onto say "Deputy Donnelly also stated at the meeting
that voting yes was the lesser of the two evils, again he is wrong.
This is an austerity treaty and even one of the speakers at the
meeting Dr Constantin Gurdgiev agreed with me on that point.  A yes
vote is the bigger evil because it will mean a further €6 Billion in
cuts and taxes from 2015 on top of the cuts in the next three
budgets.The government is making the wrong political choices,
including decisions to implement Fianna Fáil policy and its support
for the Austerity Treaty and unfortunately Stephen Donnelly now has
hitched his lot with the government and has said we should be forced
to pay more"

"Deputy Donnelly now joins with the other four government TD's in
Wicklow and is calling for a yes vote, Lets be clear about this, this
is an austerity treaty, it will see more cuts to front line public
services, health and education cuts, more stealth taxes and higher
taxes. Stephen Donnelly can no longer claim to be an opposition TD
because he is now a supporter of this failed policy of austerity which
is a complete disaster not just for this generation, but for
generations to come who will have to pick up the costs.Sinn Féin will
be campaigning for a No vote, because the only way to to solve this
crisis is to invest in jobs and growth, we need to stimulate the
economy not further deflate it. We will be launching our No campaign
on Thursday 26th in the Royal Hotel in Bray at 8pm and anyone looking
for more information or to help out on the campaign is more than
welcome" concluded Cllr Brady.