People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin
He was speaking ahead of today’s special meeting of the Derry City and Strabane District Council to discuss delayed Energy Support Payments.
Said Cllr Harkin: “The Tory NI Secretary of State is claiming desperately needed energy support payments would have been distributed here if the DUP weren’t recklessly blocking the Executive.
“Shame on the DUP but this is nonsense from the Secretary.
“The Tories and DUP don’t care about vulnerable people and struggling households in any community facing freezing temperatures.
“And the rest of the mainstream Stormont parties haven’t done enough to force the Tories to find a mechanism to deliver support.
“Families are cancelling Christmas because they can’t afford it. Vulnerable people in our communities are at risk because they can’t heat their homes or afford to eat.
“Appeals and strongly worded letters to Tory Ministers, the DUP and Stormont chiefs are well and good – but they haven’t worked and won’t work.
“We can’t wait any longer on Westminster and Stormont to do the right thing. Striking postal workers, Housing Executive workers, nurses and health service workers are leading the way.
“We need to answer the criminal delay of energy support payments and Tory plans for a winter of cuts with an all-out general strike and mass people power protests in every city and town.
“The demand for urgent hardship support must be combined with demands for real pay increases for all workers, a reversal of cuts to youth services, our schools, Radio Foyle, vital community sector organisations, and, an end to privatisation of our health service.
“We are facing a winter of pain as ruling elites attempt to force us to pay for the crisis they created and the consequences of corporate profiteering.
“We need to respond with a winter of resistance.
“Change won’t come from above, it has always happened as a result of action from below,” he added.
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