News

This morning, we woke up to a red warning from Met Éireann. That should have given us certainty. Instead many of us had no idea what that means in practice. Met Éireann’s red warning on the 28th February 2018.           If the warning system was integrated with government services it would have […]

Social Democrats Spokesperson for Children, Councillor Jennifer Whitmore, has criticised the Department of Education’s advice to schools’ boards of management this morning as ‘too little, too late’. Greystones Councillor Whitmore said: “At 5.50a.m. this morning, Met Éireann issued a Status Red weather warning for snow and ice in Dublin, Kildare, Louth, Wicklow and Meath. “However, […]

Social Democrats Political Director Anne-Marie McNally has welcomed today’s decision by the Minister for Social Protection to double the payment of fuel allowance to 331,000 people this week. Ms McNally said: “With the onset of snow overnight and further exceptionally cold weather forecast over the coming days, the doubling of the fuel allowance will give […]

Co-leader of the Social Democrats, Róisín Shortall TD, today accused the Minister for Education of a “breach of faith” in relation to pluralism in education. Speaking in the Dáil today, Deputy Shortall challenged the Minister over the decision to limit five Educate Together schools to an intake of just 13 pupils next year, and his […]

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy TD has said the government needs to wake up to the disturbing findings of a new poll that shows more than two thirds of people consider the problem of corruption to be widespread in Ireland. Deputy Murphy was commenting on the latest Eurobarometer public opinion survey by the European Commission […]

The Social Democrats have called on the Taoiseach to publish instructions given by officials to agencies which placed Ireland 2040 advertisements in local and regional newspapers which look like news coverage. The party’s co-leader Catherine Murphy TD said: “The Taoiseach needs to publish exactly what instructions were given by the Strategic Communications Unit to Mediaforce […]

Social Democrats Political Director Anne-Marie McNally has supported the call by Age Action for a double payment of the Social Welfare Fuel Payment this week. The forecast for exceptionally cold weather over the coming days has caused serious concerns that elderly people and low-income families will be forced to try and be frugal with their […]

The Social Democrats will today make a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority to raise concerns that government advertorials about Ireland 2040 have breached the principles of the advertising code which calls for ads to be ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful’. The party co-leader Catherine Murphy TD said: “In an era when there is […]

Social Democrats Political Director Anne-Marie McNally has urged homeless agencies and their facilities to take heed of the significant weather warnings in place for the coming days and ensure people are not forced onto the street during daytime hours, as is the usual practice. Ms McNally said that with Met Éireann predicting ‘exceptionally cold weather […]

The Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall TD has called on the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to stop treating childcare workers as ‘second class educators’ and provide proper supports so that they can undertake mandatory in-service child protection training. Deputy Shortall made her call after questioning Minister Zappone in the Dáil today about the […]