Edwin McGreal
Labour’s Castlebar Town Councillor Harry Barrett has moved to call for a public rally on the Mall in Castlebar in protest against the Government bailout of Anglo Irish Bank.
It will, insists Cllr Barrett, give people the chance to voice their dissatisfaction at the €22bn bailout, which he refers to as ‘an act of economic treason’.
“Every family in this town will be affected for years to come in tax increases and a serious deterioration in health, education and social services. As elected representatives, we have a duty, in the town that honours Michael Davitt, to protest against a decision by Government that will affect every citizen for years to come.”
Cllr Barrett brought an emergency motion to last week’s meeting of the council and while the meeting was adjourned as a mark of respect to the families of recently deceased Castlebar men Tony McHugh, Mick Ruane and Donie Murphy, Barrett’s motion was discussed and received considerable support.
However it will be the next meeting of the authority, on May 13, before any firm proposals are put in place.
Barrett is confident that a sub-committee will be formed and that a protest can take place before the end of May. He feels it is important that people get a forum to express their view.
“We can’t sit on our hands. We have to do something,” he told The Mayo News. “This money should have been used to stimulate the economy. It should have been used to upgrade our roads, rail, ESB and broadband networks, particularly in this county. The result of that would have given work to some of the 450,000 unemployed in the country. Now we have wasted the money and condemned the next class of school leavers to the dole.”
And Barrett also feels that the spirit of Land League founder, Straide man Michael Davitt, should be invoked in the current crisis.
“When absentee landlords in this county lost money on the gambling tables in London, the first thing they did when they returned to Mayo was to increase rents on our people. This government is putting us in exactly the same situation again, 150 years later. It behoves us as councillors to facilitate the anger and outrage of the people affected by this and to invoke the spirit of Michael Davitt at this time.”
