People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said,
“We welcome a majority of Councillors voting for our motion acknowledging the cost of living crisis response from “government, business and regulators has been criminally inadequate”.
However, we are frustrated that our call for the Council to initiate a Hardship Emergency Fund using almost £3 million in unspent Covid funding, was blocked from being voted on. If Executive parties agreed their own response has been “criminally inadequate” and were less focused on cynical point-scoring, they would be showing much more urgency for radical action.
Even though Derry has 30% of people living below the poverty line and the disproportional impact of price hikes here, not one of the Foyle MLAs in the SDLP, Sinn Fein or DUP backed the call for the Stormont Assembly to declare a Hardship Emergency with funding to protect people in line with the scale of the crisis facing many in all our communities.
Whenever elites need help or when war is launched, money is never a problem. It’s very different when it comes to workers and the least well-off.
We urge people to join the next Cost of Living Crisis protest in Derry on Saturday 5 March.
We need to step up the pressure in every town and city for immediate action to protect many in our communities from debt and destitution – and to reorder government priorities away from the super-rich and corporations.”
