Poverty
report 'totally inadequate'.
From THE IRISH NEWS April 5th, 2000
By Simon Doyle
SINN Fein has criticised the government's Vision Into Practice initiative
as "totally inadequate" and said it fails to fulfil the mission of targeting
social need. Speaking at the public launch of the Sinn Fein response to
the first Targeting Social Need (TSN) report, the party's equality spokesman
Conor Murphy said the community would be much more confident in TSN if local
politicians were in charge of its implementation.
Sinn Féin said the attainment of equality was a "vital ingredient" in the
process of conflict resolution and peace building. In response to the report
they said: "Since the inception of the six- county state, there has been a hierarchy of inequality which has been unyielding to successive laws against discrimination." Mr Murphy said: "Targeting social need, tackling discrimination and ending poverty are central to creating the equality that is at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement."
"The British government has a committment to back up its words with action because TSN is part of the Good Friday Agreement. The TSN policy puts the onus on Peter Mandelson to make sure that those in greatest need and excluded from society are brought in from the cold." Assembly member Michelle Gildernew said the government had not been forthcoming in asking the local community their views on poverty and discrimination. "The local community have had very little success in getting answers to their questions," she said.
Mr Murphy said: "Sinn Féin make a number of recommendations that must be taken on board to ensure that money gets to those most in need in an accountable and open way so that the chronic discrimination and failures of the past can be challenged." He added that people in Northern Ireland would have more confidence in TSN if the Assembly returned. |
