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Use Your Vote Wisely - Check out www.right2change.com
Friday 26 February 2016, 09am
Dear Members,
Today (Friday 26 February 2016) is general election day and like all elections it is important that your voice is heard by using your vote wisely and strategically. But firstly, it is essential that you get to your local polling station and use your vote because “bad public officials are elected by good citizens who don’t vote”.
During the last 5 years of this Government, Mandate Union has campaigned for decency at work and in society. Together we’ve fought for decent jobs, decent social services and a fairer more equal Ireland. One example of this is our involvement in the Right2Water and the Right2Change campaign platforms, joining with other trade unions, community groups, progressive politicians and political parties to abolish unfair water charges and halt the creeping privation of our national water resources.
While we have achieved much since the beginning of this campaign, such as a temporary cap on charges and a €100 “conservation grant”, the threat of increased and expensive water charges and privatisation still looms. We also campaigned with the Right2Change platform for decent healthcare, education, social housing and decent jobs and a living wage.
In this, the Centenary Year of the 1916 Revolution, the vision of a fair and equal Republic envisaged by the 1916 leaders has remained largely unfulfilled. Instead we have epidemic levels of poverty, homelessness, evictions, low wages, a dismal health care system, long hospital waiting lists, unemployment and emigration. At the same time our political leaders of today bailed out banks, bond holders and other elites to the tune of €64 billon. All of these are political choices for those in power. They reflect the priorities of not only those making the political choices, but of those who put them and maintain them in power.
But today that power shifts to you, albeit for one day. You have a real opportunity to make change happen by firstly voting and secondly voting for those politicians and parties that stood shoulder to shoulder with you, not only in opposition to water charges, but who share a vision of a new, fairer Republic and who signed up to those right2change policies and principals.
So please vote and please consider your vote carefully because today we can make change happen.
John Douglas
General Secretary
Mandate Trade Union