“The emergency Council meeting on the cost of living crisis underscores the criminally inadequate response from the political establishment.
We brought forward a proposal for the Council to immediately utilise £3 million unspent Covid funding to initiate a Hardship Emergency Fund.
If the Stormont Executive parties’ response to the crisis wasn’t so criminally negligent, Derry and Strabane Council wouldn’t be forced to look at ways to take radical action.
In response to the motion – first, there was an attempt to completely block discussion.
When we succeeded in getting the motion discussed, the SDLP followed by Sinn Féin attempted to remove the proposal to utilise the unspent £3 million. Both these attempts were rejected because they would have gutted the original motion.
A third attempt by the UUP to seriously weaken the proposal was accepted with the support of all the Executive parties on the Council. The political establishment eventually got its way.
A minority of Councillors opposed this entire charade.
We want to thank all the Councillors who stood up to this attempt to steamroll democracy and allow this meeting to be a vanity exercise for Sinn Féin and all Executive parties voting down radical action.
We commend Derry Against Fuel Poverty for giving expression to the anger many people feel and urge a mass turnout for the next Cost of Living Crisis protest on April 2nd.
In the last couple of weeks, Executive parties voted for and then overturned a 10% cut to private rents – and voted down legislation that would have strengthened workers’ ability to demand real pay rises.
It’s a disgrace for the Executive not to be able to utilise hundreds of millions of pounds at its disposal to help people now. It’s a disgrace Executive parties, including Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance, turned up their nose to a Hardship Emergency protest in December that demanded an urgent set of actions to prepare for the cost of living tsunami. It’s a disgrace the entire Executive agreed to impose a Tory real terms pay cut on health and social care workers amid a cost of living crisis.
No one should wait on promises. We urge people to organise and join people power actions now whether on their street, in their workplace or in their city or town centre. We need to step up the pressure on every possible front to stand up for workers and the least well-off. No one will do this but ourselves.”
