The access strip, although then worth an estimated £220,000 was sold for £5. Although they did not made a profit on this transaction, without it, they would not have been able to secure the £460,000 for part of their garden. Furthermore, buying and selling the land for a mere fiver, the Robinsons avoided thousands of pounds in capital gains tax.
Peter Robinson failed to declare the property on the MP’s Register of Interests. He also failed to declare a possible conflict of interest when he attended a Castlereagh Council meeting where the planning application involving his garden, was to be discussed.
Once again, these revelations confirm the cosy relationships between the political establishment and wealthy business people. It is no coincidence that Fred Fraser, one of the wealthiest property developers in Northern Ireland, was involved in many of housing developments in Castlereagh, a council politically dominated by the Robinsons for decades.
How many other councillors, MLAs and MPs have close corrupt links with wealthy business people? The Assembly is selling off our public services through Public Private Partnerships and Public Finance Initiatives, handing millions of pounds of our tax payers mone to private companies who, in return, run down our services as they seek to maximise their profits.
Working class people need a mass working class party, with representatives who live on a workers wage, defending our rights and interests.
Once again, the High Court in London has ruled in favour of the bosses by placing an injunction against RMT railway workers in Britain taking strike action. This is the second high profile example of the anti-union laws being used by big business to deny workers their democratic right to withdraw their labour.
Like most other Governmental bodies, the WELB have placed a moratorium on the recruitment of staff as a means to met the stringent efficiency gains agreed by the Stormont parties in their three-year Comprehensive Spending Review (May 2008- April 2011). The impact of this has been to place an ever greater burden on those staff remaining on to provide front-line services.
Bring Quinn Group into public ownership under democratic workers’ control