'If you want real change, vote for Sinn Féin’ - Hogan
by Tadhg Carey Updated: Wednesday, 16th February, 2011 5:45pm
General election 2011: Paul Hogan Sinn Fein
Cllr Paul Hogan is aiming to be the first Sinn Féin TD from Longford/Westmeath since Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was elected in 1957.
The 28-year-old has been a member of Athlone Town Council since 2004 and is contesting his second general election, having run for Sinn Féin in 2007.
Describing himself as energetic, fresh-thinking and extremely hard-working, he said Sinn Féin was providing an alternative to the notion that we put every penny into the banks.
He said Sinn Féin believed in breaking the connection between sovereign debt and banking debt. At present, speculators who had made private gambles and had lost were being bailed out by the Irish taxpayer. “It’s like placing a bet in the bookmakers and losing, and going in the next day and being paid out,” he explained.
“No more money should be pumped into the banks. No one can guarantee that the banks won’t collapse.”
The big issues that were emerging during his canvas were unemployment, emigration, the universal social charge and turf cutting
“People are asking why is it that people on incomes of €4,000 have to pay into this universal social charge,” he said.
Asked as to what local policies Sinn Féin would introduce, he said the issue of flooding of the Shannon needed to be tackled.
Despite legislation appointing the Office of Public Works as lead authority over the Shannon, it was planned to take five years to carry out a report on Shannon flooding.
“That report needs to be expedited so that proper flood defences can be introduced,” he said.
Cllr Hogan also said Sinn Féin supported the retention and development of public services. “We want to protect local hospitals and not see services depleted,” he explained, with particular reference to the local hospital network.
The moratorium on public sector recruitment should also be lifted to allow staff to deliver essential frontline services.
There also needed to be a rollout of broadband across rural Ireland. This was an issue, he said, that was arising on his canvas.
Stating that there was a lot of anger visible across the constituency, he said he believed the Sinn Féin message was resonating on the doorsteps.
Asked how he could feel it was realistic for Sinn Féin to think it could win a seat in Longford/Westmeath when he had only polled 2,136 votes in the 2007 general election, Cllr Hogan replied: “It’s a very different landscape out there now. There’s a lot more political engagement.”
And he insisted that Sinn Féin vote would be substantially increased locally and nationally in this election.
Pressed, Cllr Hogan said he believed Willie Penrose and James Bannon would be elected in Longford/Westmeath and another eight candidates would be fighting for some 35,000 to 40,000 votes.
“Transfers are going to win this election and hopefully Athlone retains a TD.” He said he was hoping that the positive response on the doorsteps would translate into vote in the ballot box.
He insisted that Sinn Féin wanted to be in Government after the next election and was not a a party that wanted to criticise from the sidelines “We want to have enough TDs,” he declared, but stressed that Sinn Féin wouldn’t prop up either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael in power.
Asked as to how Sinn Féin could be in government in that case, when Labour had ruled out entering any coalition arrangement with the party, Cllr Hogan replied: “If Eamon Gilmore had the opportunity to be Taoiseach in the morning, Eamon Gilmore would do a deal with Sinn Féin and the independents. The whole thing rests on numbers, what way people vote and how many TDs each of the respective parties and alliances receive.”
Questioned as to whether Sinn Féin was being hypocritical in its criticism of cuts in the south, when it was happy to introduce such cutbacks in the north as part of the Assembly executive, he insisted that the situations were entirely dissimilar.
“The Assembly doesn’t have fiscal powers. Different departments’ budgets are cut by the Conservative Government,” he explained, arguing that the reduced budgets were then apportioned by the Assembly Executive.
Sinn Féin differs from most of the other parties in this election, not only on its desire to simply , but also on its insistence on a wide-ranging investment programme.
“We want to invest €7bn over a three and a half year period to provide the stimulus to the economy,” Cllr Hogan said
Sinn Féin believes that money should be taken from the National Pension Reserve Fund, and used to stimulate the economy, rather than being poured into the banks as is currently the case.
Cllr Hogan also said Sinn Féin was committed to getting rid of the Universal Social Charge, which, he said, was expected to bring in €410m each year.
Sinn Féin is proposing that a 48% tax rate on all incomes in excess of €100,000 would yield, according to Department of Finance costings, another €420m.
Sinn Féin’s economic policies have come under repeated scrutiny and criticism - with its plan to find the €4.5bn to bridge the gap between the state’s spending and receipts being particularly scorned.
Cllr Hogan insisted that Sinn Féin’s pre-budget submission detailed the measures required to raise this money. He instanced a wealth tax on all property, excluding farmland, valued at over €1m would bring in €1bn. Another €1.1bn could be gathered from standardising all discretionary tax receipts.
And he insisted those who criticised Sinn Féin’s approach and who favoured the existing policies were “the very people who got us into the situation that we are in”.
Asked if Sinn Féin’s commitment to a 32-county republic was no longer to the forefront of its agenda, he said the reunification of the country was the platform on which all their policies were based.
However, he conceded the driving concern of people at the moment was the economy, although he insisted Sinn Féin’s All-Ireland economic approach would yield many dividends.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams has also been under the media microscope following somewhat uncertain comments on economic and banking issues.
However, Cllr Hogan said the criticisms of Adams were media-driven and emerged after Adams’ performance in a 2007 leaders’ debate had come just after an election in the north. Cllr Hogan said he too would find it difficult to debate in the north tomorrow and deal, on his feet, with questions relating to different rates and percentages,
He said the party currently had a leader and, separately, a finance spokesman in Pearse Doherty, who spoke about the economy in a language that people understood.
Asked if he felt the people of Ireland and Louth deserved to know if Gerry Adams had ever been a member of the IRA, Cllr Hogan said it wasn’t an issue. “I haven’t heard any reference to it right across the constituency.”
Urging people to vote for real change, Cllr Hogan said: “If people want real change, there’s no point just changing the personnel of Government. Instead, make a change in the direction of policy. There’s no point replacing Fianna Fáil with Fine Gael, you are going to get the same result.”
Voting for real change meant voting Sinn Féin, he insisted.
“The three main parties all signed up to four years of cuts. If people want real change, they are going to have to vote for it.”
