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€25,000 per day for Convention Centre Dáil While Special School Hot Dinner Funding is Cancelled. - Tóibín

Aontú Leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín has strongly criticised the continued use of he Convention Centre at what he termed an “eye watering cost to the taxpayer”. He stated;


“It is still hard to believe that the Dáil is paying €25,000 a day for the use Convention Centre. Especially so since many of the TDs have already been vaccinated and Covid has subsided to such low levels in Hospital and ICU. The vast majority of the time there is no more than a half a dozen TDs sitting in the 2,000 seater convention centre. Block votes where all the TDs are present last for, tops one hour a week”.


“This largesse by the political establishment is in sharp contrast the experience of St Mary's Special School in Navan, who now will no longer be able to provide hot meals at lunchtime to their students. St Mary’s Special School is a wonderful school that providing a great service to children with special needs all around Co Meath. Many children get on the school bus at 7.30am and don’t return home until 4pm. It’s a seriously long day for a child not to have a substantial hot meal provided to them. Yet the CE scheme that provided the catering staff has been withdrawn and the school has been refused funding from the Dept of Social Protection”.


“Currently taxpayers are paying €5,000 a day to supplement the fine food at the Convention Centre restaurant for TDs and Ministers. Again the contrast between the experience of children with special needs and phenomenally well paid TDs and Ministers is astounding. That the political class is not mortified by these gaps in Irish society is incredible”.


“Aontú is calling for practical steps, such as the vaccination of the rest of the TDs to be taken now to get the Leinster House back up and running fully and for this waste to be stopped. We are also calling on the Dept of Social Protection to include Special Schools in their Hot Meal funding”.
 

By Aontú Press | 14 May, 2021



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The Irish political system is radically broken



In Ireland the vast majority of elected representatives put a finger in the air to check which way the political wind is blowing. They have one eye on their leaders – seeking brownie points – and another eye keeping their seat safe. If elected reps shut up and do as they’re told, they are promoted; if they stand up for what they believe in, they are demoted. No wonder we have the political class we have. No wonder one point one billion euro is being buried in a hole under the National Children’s Hospital and that Stormont is in stalemate.



Throughout Ireland, many people are now afraid to say what they feel, many are afraid to respectfully engage on a range of different topics. Many feel there is a new censorship and a new political correctness in Ireland, that opposition to the establishment is being deleted.



Respectful opposition is not the enemy. Respectful opposition is a critical element of a functional democracy. Aontú will have the backbone to stand up, without fear, for you.




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