One of People Before Profit’s first priorities at Stormont will be to force the SDLP and
Sinn Fein to deliver on their pledge to hold a public inquiry into illegal dumping in the North West.

The pledge from the two parties came at Stormont after a BBC Spotlight programme two years ago exposing the scandal of illegal dumping around Campsie. Derry now has one of the biggest illegal dumps in Europe on our doorstep.

It is alarming that that the route of the proposed upgrade of the A6 will run over a vast mound of unidentified rubbish.

Gas from the buried rubbish can be seen bubbling to the surface of “lagoons” on the site.
At one point, potentially toxic rubbish is buried within ten metres of a tributary to the Faughan – from which most of Derry’s water is drawn. We accept Department of the Environment assurances that the water coming through our taps poses no immediate risk. But literally nobody knows the level of threat which might emerge in the future.
In the immediate aftermath of the Spotlight programme, promises were made that the site would be cleared up. Various estimates of the cost were discussed. Since the, there's been silence. on the subject.

As well as People Before Profit, community and campaigning groups – Enagh Youth Forum, Zero Waste NW, Faughan Anglers Association and Friends of the Earth among them - have consistently been calling for an inquiry to put the full truth before the people. What do the Executive parties have to fear from the facts being made public?

In March 2014, the Assembly unanimously backed a motion stating that: “This Assembly recognises the issues raised in the recently broadcast BBC 'Spotlight' investigation into illegal waste disposal and other irregularities; and calls on the Minister of the Environment to establish an independent public inquiry into waste disposal in the north-west and the rest of Northern Ireland..."

Both the SDLP and Sinn Fein supported this call. But two years on, no such inquiry has been set up. And neither party has come under any sustained pressure in the Assembly to do what they promised.

That will change when People Before Profit MLAs walk into Stormont. We won’t allow environmental issues of this sort to be long-fingered any further.

​The people of Foyle and elsewhere in the North will have a voice on the matter.

​The most ominous aspect of the latest Stormont expenses scandal is that none of the Executive parties seems to think there was anything wrong going on.

Unionist and Nationalists have stood shoulder-to-shoulder defending the indefensible.

Hundreds of thousands of public money was paid out for non-existent “research” - even after the official regulator had told the parties to stop it. Not a penny has been paid back.

An individual who treated the benefits system like this would be denounced as a scrounger and hauled into court and would have to return every farthing.

It’s different strokes for different folks, with the folks on the hill sitting pretty.

The Assembly has become a cosy club for parties which think they are entitled to everything, accountable for nothing. It needs a blast of fresh air from MLAs with different, radical politics. People Before Profit speaks not for any one community but for the interests of all working-class people. We will change the atmosphere and the political dynamic at Stormont.

We will derail the gravy train.

Eamonn McCann

People Before Profit

The latest scandal over MLAs’ misuse of public money shows the need for different people with different politics in the Assembly.

MLAs billed the State for hundreds of thousands of pounds for “research” which had never been carried out. If a small voluntary group did that, it would be wound up and the police called in.

Ordinary citizens found to have over-claimed in welfare payments are named and shamed, fined and ordered to pay the money back. If they don’t, they can go to jail.

But to some MLAs, honesty in claiming money from the State is for the little people. They have rigged the system to ensure that big wheels like themselves get off. This is part of a Stormont culture of “anything goes”, generated by the NIO along with parties which regard themselves as untouchable because Stormont would supposedly collapse if they weren't sustained in office.

The main parties are taking the rest of us for fools. The people should give them a short, sharp shock on May 5th.

They should send in a team from People Before Profit to shine a light into the murkv corners where the dodgy deals are done.

All claim-forms and other documentation relating to the hundreds of thousands in public money paid out to Research Services Ireland should be published alongside the names of the MLAs involved.

The election is now over. Everything has now moved into the verification and counting process. There should be a result from Foyle sometime this evening.

Whatever happens in the count today, we can be proud of the work we have done and of the way we have helped PBP become one of the main players in the political life of Derry.

In the meantime, we would like to thank everyone who has helped out in any way during the campaign:

with canvassing, driving, office work, and postering;

with leafletting, labelling, attending polling stations, and making banners and signs;

with donating, and making tea and coffee and sandwiches and stew;

with performing at and organising the various events and fundraisers;

and with the help in the counting areas.

Thank you.