Were Fine Gael and Labour right to vote for the Council Budget?
Fine Gael / Labour Case
We published an article asking if Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein were right to vote against the council budget which may end up in all councillors losing their jobs next Monday and the running of the Council to be left to the Department of the environment – and concluded that they had good reasons for doing so.
Now we look at it from Fine Gael’s and Labour’s point of view.
Protest
The main reason that Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein gave for vetoing the council budget was a protest about the Government incorporating Donegal water into Irish water which will lead to redundancies in Donegal. The Government also decided to grab assets worth €355 million from Donegal without paying a cent.
However, from the Fine Gael/ Labour perspective, this is a separate issue. As Donegal people they may well not agree with the Government on this.
However, as this is something that the Government are doing and not the Council they see voting down the COuncil Budget as not the way to achieve what they want. They see this as an own goal. It’s a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Come Together
Perhaps local councils could get together on this to oppose the Government’s plans – or a high court case taken out. However, the Government aren’t going to change their policy because of Donegal Councillors committing mass suicide as far as their jobs are concerned.
They would have even less chance of changing the Government’s mind if they were all out of work and Donegal Council was being run by the Department of the Environment in Dublin.
the second reason that Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein gave was that the budget they approved last year had been cut by the Central Government and it was likely to be cut again this year.
Ridiculous
Fine Gael and Labour ask why they would vote the budget down for this reason for something that has not yet happened. They think that it is ridiculous to vote down a budget because they think the Government might cut it. they say that the time to take action is if and when the Government do cut the budget.
If this happens the Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail councillors could all resign in protest at that stage instead of acting like suicide bombers and taking all of the councillors, including Fine Gael, Labour and Independent councillor’s, with them – leaving Donegal ungoverned except for the Department of the Environment.
Donegal is badly treated as it is without letting the central Government foxes into the unguarded lairs of the hens. What more might they extract while all councillors are at home watching television?
This is the case that Fine Gael and Labour are making.
Click here for the Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein case.