GREYSTONES HARBOUR

So I'm back again about the Greystones Harbour! Last week 400 or so people turned up at a public meeting about this development - which was really heartening. I was aware of the concern among large numbers of residents and others but this kind of turn out on a Tuesday evening in January was great to see. I was the only TD that turned up - and was joined Labour Cllr Tom Fortune.


While its acknowledged that an upgrade of the areas is welcome, this development in its present guise goes too far. Its going to cause years of trucks ploughing down to the harbour every 2 mintues which will be unbearable for the local residents/community.

There is such a strong feeling among Labour representatives, Greystones residents and others that this development really needs a rethink and to be reduced in scale.

And finally - just a quick note on first few days back in the Dail, 2006. It definetly seems like Groundhog day there at times. Bloggers may well be aware of the revelations couple of weeks back of the 56 million euro that the Department of Health thought hadn't spent, but in fact had spent on capital spending...buildings etc. I just wonder sometimes if our Minister for Health ever looks at her bank statments, as the no one seems to know where this money has gone??

Labour Greystones Harbour Greystones Tom Fortune

Wednesday, 18th January 2006

JUST WHEN you think things couldn't get worse they get worse. The figures presented by the INO (Irish Nurses Organisation) of 422 patients on trolleys in A&E Departments around the country are truly shocking. It seems incredible that a year after promising to solve the A&E Crisis by April 2005 and we're still seeing this type of situation.

In a non health service related topic, we're beginning the preparations for this year's 1916 celebration. I'm Chair of the Liberty Project that has as it's aim to celebrate the role of the Labour movement in Irish history - in particular the events surrounding 1916 while exploring the significance in today's world of the struggle for equality and freedom.

We're planning the month of April for events - I'll post more details as soon as I have them...it should be interesting....

Labour Labour Liberty Accident&Emergency

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all you bloggers out there! This is my first post of 2006 and I hope it'll be first of many and regular postings...

New Years Day began with a kick-start - the traditional New Years Day charity swim in Bray, as I do every year. This has to be the greatest hangover cure of all time-blowing away all cobwebs from the previous night's festivities. The water was absolutely freezing, as expected, but it was great to see such an impressive turn out.

THIS year will no doubt be an exciting one in politics with a general election looming. The recent holidays were needed to recharge the batteries. Despite the fact that the Dail is not yet back the Christmas holidays already seem like a distant memory!

2006 began with the announcement of the Exchequer returns for 2005. Those who work in the health services and those who have had to endure long waiting lists and long waits on trolleys in our A&E units must be shocked that around E136m went unspent last year. While money is far from the only answer in relation to the health services, but I'm sure all will agree that there are areas that targeted spending is desperately needed.

I'm currently working on finalising our Primary Health Care document, which I hope to launch in the next few weeks, so it's definitely back to work time...

Labour Primary Care Bray swim

Friday 16th December

LAST sunday I joined an impressive crowd of people at a protest for Greystones Harbour. It was great to see such a turn out, loads of families, kids playing. Sadly the promised appearance of Dustin the Turkey failed to happen - the run up to Christmas obviously has him hiding.

Its been a busy run up the Christmas break in general. Last Friday I went down to Cork to host an Arts Forum. It was organised by Labour Artists and was really heartening to have such interested and committed people turn up to debate and thrash out the issues. Cork has had a great year as European City of Culture overall but we do need to see a continued and coordinated approach to the arts. Of course, needless to say Labour's Arts Policy "art4all" is availabe on www.labour.ie ! Hmm, seems that every week on this blog I'm directing people to our website....but it's all there folks! And I would like your comments and feedaback on any of it!

Actually I was down in Cork over the summer to speak at the Older Women's Network and I spoke on the incredibly poor represenation of women in the Dail, managerial positions etc. Today I've just noticed on breakingnews.ie that the Central Stats Office has confirmed that the figures are as disappointing as ever. "13% of serving TDs are women, while female businesspeople also make up only 30% of positions on state boards." It means that issues that affect women are being legislated for by a constant majority of men....would childcare for example have taken a back seat for so long if there was a higher representation of women making decisions?

Oh and for any Wicklow based bloggers - I hope you slept soundly through our recent earthquake - I certainly did!

Happy Christmas!!


Irishblogs LizMcManus Labour Party Greystones Harbour Greystones Wicklow
Labour Arts Labour Women Bray earthquake Childcare

Today, I was lucky enough to be invited along to Ballyknockan Cookery School in Glenealy, Co. Wicklow to present the newly qualified chefs with their certs. They fed me well, proving their accolades were much deserved, and it was certainly one of the highlights of my week! I came across a great quote which I shared with the new chefs-"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all!" Best of luck to all of them!

Unfortunately, there'll be a return to rushed sandwiches tomorrow as we face the announcement of the Budget. More updates on this later....

Greystones Marina update

AT THE recent Greystones branch meeting, the Labour Party had a long discussion about the proposed harbour development. At the last Local Election we expressed grave concerns about the scale of the development, the traffic pollution generated and the impact it would have on Greystones.

We welcome the fact that more people are critical of this proposal and we believe it should be withdrawn. There is a great need to improve and upgrade the harbour area but this kind of development-led plan does not serve the community.

We intend to carry out further evaluations once the environmental impact study is published. So watch this space…

For more information check out www.greystonesmarina.com

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Monday, November 28

THIS is always a busy time of year in Dail Eireann and I have been meaning to update the site long before now, so apologies for not doing it sooner.

A lot of different things have been happening since I last updated, we have had the Budget estimates released by the Government recently where A&E charges were doubled to €65 a visit. The GP-only cards do not cover A&E visits so this is very disheartening news on the health front indeed.

People on waiting lists and enduring terrible conditions in overcrowded Accident and Emergency Units will also find it difficult to believe that the Tanaiste actually failed to spend more than €56m that was available to her this year.

Labour Youth had another successful conference in Galway and I spoke along with the Party Leader, Deputy Pat Rabbitte and Deputy Michael D Higgins. Check out this link on the Labour Youth website.



I spoke to the delegates about mental health and awareness in Ireland and the pitiful resources given to this the Cinderella of Irish health services. Labour is the only party to have a specific policy on mental health, you can read more here.

George Bernard Shaw once said that youth is wasted on the young and having spent time at the conference of Labour Youth over the years I have found the complete opposite to be true!



I was pleased to meet residents of Greystones last week when concerns were raised about proposals for the harbour. This is one of the planning issues that I am keeping a close eye on and will be keeping in contact with the local residents this issue.

Finally the Labour Party will be having its Wicklow convention on December 4 and we are hoping to see all our Labour members out in force.

WASTERS

LMM.PR.WASTERS
Originally uploaded by Liz McManus TD.

I really believe that the people of our State are sick and tired of the waste that the current government are consistently in charge of. The Labour Party are sick and tired of taxpayers money beinig wasted too, and as such have launched this "Wasters" campaign. We've been highlighting the vast wastage of money on various botched projects.

For example:
The Great Computer Squander: E160 million on a health service computer system that doesn't work.

Michael McDowell's Pricey Prisons: E30 million for a prison site worth E6 million.

Bertie's Blunder in Abbotstown: E157 million to clear a site for a stadium that wasn't built.

The Tunnel Throw-away: The Port Tunnel is running E335 million over budget.

Charlie McCreevy's Horsey Hand-out: E15 million for this pet project!

For that waste listed above that comes to E753 million, if Labour was in Government the following would have been achieved instead:

2000 extra Gardai on the streets for 9 years.

An additional teacher into every primary school for 5 years.

A free pre-school place for every child under 4 years of age.

The funding of the redevelopment of hospitals such as the Mater and Temple Street.