Cork Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan has described as disgraceful the scenes of Fianna Fáil backbenchers being moved to fury over the proposed changes in hunting laws while remaining silent on the level of unemployment and poverty created by the same government’s policies.

Cllr. Tynan said it was clear that the vested interests of groups involved in hunting and other so-called rural sports brought more fear to the government backbenches than the spectre of half a million people unemployed, evictions of people in mortgage arrears or the destruction of the Irish economy by bankers and speculators.

“If there is any message in this”, said Cllr. Tynan, “it is that these deputies have not felt enough pressure from ordinary people over their support for this government’s disastrous policies.  They are running around with the terror of a cornered fox in their eyes at the prospect of losing the hunting community’s votes but seem to think that their day of reckoning for the state they’ve left this country in will never come.  They need to be told otherwise”

“It is disconcerting in the extreme that government backbenchers can find their voices against a law to protect animals from cruelty but cannot find their voices when it comes to protecting the livelihood, jobs and living conditions of human beings, not even their own constituents”

Issued 25th June 2010