County council staff 'no' to all FF queries
Thursday March 11 2010
A FIANNA FAIL town councillor has launched a furious broadside at the IMPACT trade union after it emerged that union members are giving party councillors the cold shoulder.
Since last week county council officials in the IMPACT trade union throughout Cork have been refusing to deal with queries and other business from Fianna Fail councillors as part of their national protest as civil service cutbacks.
Cllr Olive Corcoran (FF) told The Corkman that she went to Fermoy town hall last week seeking information on behalf of a constituent.
However she was told that officials affiliated to IMPACT had been instructed by their union not to deal with members of the government parties.
While there are no Green party councillors in Fermoy, the action will affect Cllr Corcoran and her Fianna Fail colleague Cllr Colette Dolan Moore. A similar situation exists in other town councils across the county, including Mallow and Macroom.
An official with the union confirmed that they have instructed members not to deal with any government party councillors until such a time as the government agrees to enter negotiations over the issue of salary cuts to low paid public sector workers.
"There is a huge amount of anger, frustration and disappointment among lower paid public sector workers over the manner in which they have been targeted," said the spokesperson.
"We will only reverse out action if and when the government agree to hold discussions about the pay cuts and are willing to discuss the issue of public sector reform."
The official refused to rule out speculation that the ban might be extended to Fine Gael councillors over the coming weeks over their failure to condemn the pay cuts.
Cllr Corcoran has described the behaviour of the trade union as "obnoxious" and said it made a mockery of the whole local government system.
"I was given a mandate by the people of the town to work on their behalf. This dispute effetely means that I am not allowed to do that. There is no point in my even trying to do anything under the present circumstances as I would only be banging my head against a brick wall," said Cllr Corcoran.
"The manner in which the trade union has forced its members into this industrial action is obnoxious to say the least," she added.
However Labour councillor and Fermoy town mayor Noel McCarthy said the Fianna Fail party only have themselves to blame for the current impasse.
"The fault for this whole situation lies firmly at the feet of the government parties who have imposed these unacceptable pay cuts on lower paid civil servants," said Cllr McCarthy.
"The onus is now on councillors who have been affected by this action to write to central government to sort this whole mess out. The Fianna Fail party seem not to care about the hardship these cuts will cause to people and its members at grass roots level are now experiencing the fallout from that," he added.
- BILL BROWNE
