ISN local election candidate John O'Neill welcomes intervention by CORI

dublin | politics / elections | press release Wednesday May 20, 2009 14:49 by Irish Socialist Network

The Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) has taken a welcome stand against the culture of greed that has created the current economic crisis.

Finglas / Ballymun local election candidate John O’Neill welcomed the call from the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) for voters to support candidates who will prioritise the common good and defend the welfare state against cutbacks.

“This is an important contribution to the debate from CORI,” said O’Neill. “For the last few months, the media has been dominated by right-wing economists and spokesmen for IBEC, telling us that we have to slash public services and welfare payments. Those arguments are based on false claims that we spend too much on our welfare system. Now CORI have told us the truth: Ireland doesn’t have a ‘generous’ welfare state, in fact we have some of the lowest social welfare payments in Europe.”

O’Neill pointed out that the real responsibility for Ireland’s economic crisis lies with the banks and the property developers.

“We all know why the economy is in such a terrible state,” said the Socialist candidate. “The banks gambled billions on the property boom, and now that the bubble has burst, their greed has dragged down the whole economy. As Fr Seán Healy of CORI points out, we are paying the price for a philosophy that promoted individual greed and denied the importance of community. We need a radical break with that agenda and we can start on June 5th.”

The Finglas / Ballymun candidate urged people not to be conned by bogus arguments bandied about in the media.

“Just because you hear something repeated half-a-dozen times every day, doesn’t mean it’s true,” said O’Neill. “CORI deserves credit for challenging the lies of right-wing economists who are on the payroll of the big banks. We don’t spend too much on public services, our welfare system is not too generous, and we will only dig ourselves deeper into the hole by attacking the living standards of working-class people. It’s time for workers to start fighting back.”

John O’Neill is running in the local elections as the candidate of the Irish Socialist Network

You can contact John at 087 6367175 or votejohnoneill@yahoo.ie

www.bebo.com/John4finglasballymun