At the Dublin City Council Budget meeting on 21 December 2009, Killian Forde proposed the budget as Chair of the Finance SPC and voted in favour of it. As a Sinn Fein member he was apparently, in breach of his party’s mandate. The most controversial content of the budget was the removal of the waiver for social welfare recipients of the waiver on bin lifts (the waiver remains on the standing charge of €95 per annum).
Sinn Fein says he went against the party mandate on the budget given their opposition to the removal of the waiver but this is not the first time that SF councillors voted in differing ways on the budget. In the past a number of their councillors voted for and others against the same budget, all of which contained bin charges. It seems though that this has been a step too far and Forde has resigned from the party saying he would be guilty of “chancery” if he voted against this budget.
So the rest of us who did vote against the budget are “chancers”? Well my mother always says “brave are the chancers” and now I have a context for what she means. If voting on principle against double taxes on essential services such as refuse and water is “chancery” then here is one proud “chancer”. Perhaps he was in the wrong party all along but I doubt it. Sinn Fein have gone all over the place on the bin tax and if Forde’s response as Chair of the Finance SPC to the report on the Commission on Taxation is anything to go by they may well do the same on water charges (as they have done in the North of this island). At the last Finance Committee meeting Killian Forde as chair, proposed that we broadly welcome the report. This Councillor objected and People Before Profit are very clear, we do not welcome the introduction of water charges as proposed by the Commission on Taxation. We will campaign vigorously against this next double tax.
Sinn Fein’s remaining four councillors who voted against the budget were most unhelpful in the budget debate. We witnessed grand standing by Fianna Fail who mouthed loudly against the removal of the waiver on bin charges and sounded almost radical. Killian Forde behaved like he was looking for an Oscar nomination when he dramatically and correctly condemned their hypocrisy. The Labour party almost gave themselves blood pressure in their condemnation of the “Trotskyite” People Before Profit councillors who, they claimed “instructed” working class people not to pay their debts to the council. What an insult to working class people that they would be instructed by us or indeed by the Labour Party who not so long ago advocated non-payment of the bin charges.
Management used their Executive Powers and refused to take any budget amendments that contained any interference with the issue of waste management. People Before Profit, some Sinn Fein councillors and other independents had tried to move amendments that would eliminate the removal of the bin charge waiver and the 5% increase. We are elected. Management are appointed. But we don’t get to exercise democratic control and at this meeting barely got an opportunity to express our democratic opinions.
One crucial point that was missed during this debate was that this budget reduced the commercial rate on city business by 2% and cost the rest of us €7 million. That is the equivalent of the recent pay cut suffered by the council workers who are now effectively subsiding the cut in commercial rates.
Killian Forde claims that the budget estimates was “the best possible deal available”. But he is wrong. This was far from the best possible deal working people and the poor. It was the best deal available for big business that turned over vast profits during the course of the Celtic Tiger and are now screaming for cuts to rates because the “footfall” is down.
There is a political lesson from Killian Forde’s departure from Sinn Fein and move to the Labour Party. We need a working class party that represents the interests of our class and our class only – not those of big business, bankers and economists. It is impossible to straddle the two camps and trying to do so is real “chancery”.
Report by Cllr Brid Smith (People Before Profit Alliance)
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