By Gary Mulcahy,
There has been outrage at the inhuman cuts announced in recent weeks. Care homes are being shut and elderly people being told to get out, leaving only private care-homes the only option for many – at considerable cost.
The Assembly politicians are treating ordinary people like vermin.
For young people the same treatment can be expected from Stormont. The decision to remove the only paediatric cardiac surgery service in the North at the Children’s Hospital (Royal Victoria Hospital) in Belfast is a genuine scandal. It means parents and children in need of vital heart surgery will be forced to travel to Dublin or Birmingham in future. Attacks on children’s services are beginning to spread with plans for the closure of schools across Northern Ireland. Up to 600 schools are under threat. But communities can fight back and stop these unacceptable cuts. The local community in Dundonald in East Belfast has rallied against the threat to close Dundonald High School with mass meetings, leafleting, campaign banners etc. The school provides essential services in particular for disadvantaged children with special needs.
Nobody voted for these cuts to services. No politician promised to close schools and health services before the elections. They have no mandate for these cuts and ordinary people are perfectly entitled to fight these cuts. The Socialist Party helped form the Stop the Cuts Campaign together with others to bring together all those affected by cuts and unite the opposition to the cuts. The cuts are become more painful but there is no appetite for the cuts and people are beginning to fight back.
The struggles must link up and develop a mass, united opposition to the Stormont cuts!
The dangerous and life-threatening cuts to our health service continue. Despite the denial of Edwin Poots and the Northern Trust, the expected closure of Coleraine A&E is the worst kept secret in Northern Irish politics.