Hapless Govt staggering from one dismal day to next, says Kells cathaoirleach

The Government has been accused of standing idly by as devastation is being visited on the national economy by Kells Town Council Cathaoirleach, Cllr Brian Collins, who called on the Government to resign. He said the Government was only concerned at bailing out bankers and developers and was wasting the opportunity and resources that will be needed to stimulate the economy and get people back to work. 'The old story of the mad Emperor Nero, fiddling while Rome burns, seems to have taken on a modern relevance. This hapless Government is staggering from one dismal day to the next, without any coherent plan on how we are going to get out of this recession. 'In fact, most of their actions so far have been to suck more money out of the economy. This could very well drive this country into a depression. They are still clinging to the last shreds of Thatcherism, believing that if they look after the banks, then the banks will look after business and that business will in turn look after workers. Trickle-down economics was devised by the super rich for the benefit of the super rich. At the end of the day, taxpayers had to pick up the bill for their greed.' The Labour Party councillor said we need to act and act now and the remaining funds in the National Pension Reserve should not be used to help out badly-run banks or provide support to 'parasite developers'. He said: 'It should be invested straight back into communities up and down the country, building the infrastructure we need for the future. This will get people off the dole and back to work, paying taxes to the Exchequer. It will lift confidence, increase our competitiveness and generate further recovery. This is what the rest of the world is doing. It is what we did with the European funds to create the Celtic Tiger in the first place. We need to follow this route or risk total catastrophe,' he said. Cllr Collins said the unemployment figures in Meath were devastating. 'At the time of the last general election, the number of unemployed in Kells stood at 541. The figure today is 1,298 - a percentage increase of of 140 per cent. This is one of the highest in the whole country. 'Behind these figures lie real people, facing mortgage payments and rising bills. The banks have no interest in helping these people and the Government has abandoned them to their fate.' He said the chaos in the Department of Social Welfare which he predicted last summer has yet to be resolved, as local offices struggle to cope with the massive surge in unemployment. 'Through a mixture of arrogance, pig-headedness and incompetence, Fianna Fail have betrayed their electorate and let down the whole country. The Government is now beginning to believe its own spin. They tell us that we are just innocent victims of greedy bankers on Wall Street. 'As if they didn"t look after their friends in the tent at the Galway Races for years, or wasted billions on dead-end projects, or allowed manufacturing to spiral into decline, or fuelled a credit and property addiction. They sneered at opposition politicians and journalists who warned that the property bubble was going to burst. I think people are coming to the conclusion that an election is far preferable to a depression. It is time for this Government to go,' he said.