Core Values and why Sean has decided to run.

 In relation to the core principles of our major political parties they are now but a distant memory in his view. Presently, politicians simply stick their finger up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. We must ask ourselves: “Where are we being taken as a society on the road to this utopian pluralist illusion, of inclusion based on implanting the neo-liberal world of sexual freedom, self-liberation and the dictatorship of relativism upon our teenagers.  Ireland now ranks fourth highest among high-income nations in teen suicide and the incidence of teenage depression, anxiety and mental illness continues to increase without any explanation from our government. How many of our young people’s problems are not simply mental but also spiritual; the mental illness an outward manifestation of a slow spiritual death? A true education fosters academic formation in the context of spiritual growth across the continuum spanning faith and fact. The challenge for our schools is to rediscover this old way of formation. We need to look deeply and critically at the existing state curriculum, not simply in religious and sexual education but across all subjects.

While a candidate in the general election may not change the current direction of Irish society, from the removal of religious instruction in our schools to the challenges facing our family structure, he or she can encourage politicians of all parties and none to question and debate the current “group think”.  It is incumbent on us all, election candidates and voters, to ask the simple question: Is this the best that we can do for our community?  The issue for us, Sean believes, is that most politicians, economists and the media don’t want to understand that the root cause of Ireland’s social and economic challenges are moral and spiritual, not just the economic difficulties they have caused over the years to you and your community .  When Christian values are forcefully pushed out of political discourse, it is much harder for human dignity, moral values, consciousness and truth to be upheld in our fragile society.

Sean is of the view that the current socialist agenda based on our EU Constitution has mastered the art of inducing a feeling of utter defeat and helplessness on the part of those groups and individuals who question the current crisis. This new society operates in an extremely efficient manner at least in its higher levels of leadership.  It makes use of every possible means at its disposal, be they scientific, technical, social or economic to follow its reform programmes.  It follows a perfectly mapped out strategy whether in education or in  social reforms. They hold almost complete sway in international organisations, in financial circles, in the field of mass communication; national press, radio and TV.

Sean highlights the main issues facing people in Leitrim , Sligo, North Roscommon and South Donegal .

Since the launch of his campaign, Sean has been busy on the ground meeting with the people of the constituency to hear their issues and concerns they feel are facing their local community. ‘There are some obvious issues that need to be addressed that the people of
constituency are relentlessly campaigning for’. He believes TD’s need to do more to support and build on all the good work that local activist groups are currently campaigning for. ‘TD’s need to work with and support local community activists group by highlighting their issues at a regional level’.

Sean outlined the reasoning behind his decision to run in the
constituency to highlight the social and economic decline of rural areas of the constituency and he would like the opportunity to address these issues if elected. ‘If there is not a long term strategic plan in place for North West unfortunately these issues will not be solved and we will see a continuous decline in investment, employment and tourism in our area. The top four issues Sean has frequently come across are the following;

·       Lack of Broadband facilities- Ongoing delays with the roll-out of high speed broadband throughout the area directly impacts the investment in trade and employment in the area. Also residency living in rural areas in the constituency need access to adequate broadband if they have the option to work from home.

• Planning– Leitrim County Council approved just two planning applications for private houses in Leitrim last year. If you compare this to our neighboring County Cavan which approves on average 250 applications each year. It is becoming increasing difficult for families who want to set up a life in Leitrim to find suitable accommodation.
• North Roscommon is confronted with the same problem.

Forestry- 18.9% of Leitrims and North Roscommon landscape is covered in forestry, which is the highest percentage in Ireland (average 10.5%). Over plantation of forestry is  undermining rural community life and fuelling depopulationIllegal Dumping is increasing becoming a growing issue here in Leitrim which we are beginning to see more of with the rising bin charges due to the lack of competition of refuse management providers in our county.

Sean would like to thank the people of the constituency so far for their time and feedback. He has listened to all their frustrations and would like the opportunity to address these issues ‘We need to act now and I believe I have the experience and proven track record in leading campaigns that gets results’. For more details about Sean’s campaign please visit ‘Sean Wynne Election Candidate 2020’ on Facebook or on his website dbo.ie/Sean.

Sean’s Background

Running as an Independent candidate, Sean is renowned for his work in community development on issues such as fracking, forestry, fisheries to name but a few and is considered as a community activist in Leitrim. He has been jointly awarded ‘Leitrim Person of the year’ in recognition of his work on the successful ‘Save Leitrim’ Campaign which resulted in the reuniting of Leitrim as a single electoral area. Sean has a proven track record of hard work, experience and achievement in community based activities throughout Leitrim over many years. Youtube address –

 We all need to wake –up as a people who elect those who govern us before the values we cherish most disappear.  I call on all of you who share my views to contact me and help deliver this message to every household in the constituency .

Planning

He also sees ‘one off’ planning permission as a major issue in the decline of the population living in rural parts of the county and rural families continuing to disappear.  Sadly, rural communities continue to decline and we need interventions now.  For example only two ‘one off’ housing  permissions were granted in Leitrim last year, while surrounding counties granted hundreds of  “one off” houses with the same soil structure”. Nine years ago the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines on wastewater were introduced and since then planning for one-off homes has all but come to a standstill in Leitrim. The EPA said that human waste was only 5% of the problem but our legislators set about making it virtually impossible to get planning permission.  Rural communities are fighting for survival without new families, Leitrim people are desperate to build on their family land and the construction industry has been decimated locally with no new houses being designed, built or furnished.There is something very wrong with the current legislation and it needs to be resolved immediately regardless of who gets elected.

Forestry

Regarding forestry,  Sean has campaigned since the early 90s for proper controls on planning, through the League against Unplanned Forestry trying to change the present guidelines to directives.  The present forestry programme as operated by the government where mono culture based on Sitka
Spruce is the only solution. European Forestry policy is moving towards banning clear felling which he fully agree with.  He will be campaigning to have clear felling banned because of the environmental destruction it causes to the landscape, our lakes and rivers. All the evidence is there in the HYDROFOR  an EPA and DAFM-supported multi-sector co-operative project to investigate the impacts of forestry operations on Ireland’s aquatic ecology, carried out in 2016  Number 169. Leitrim has already 20 per cent of its land covered with forestry and while he welcome’s the study commissioned by the Minister for Forestry the social impact needs serious consideration . There are up to 20 primary schools throughout Leitrim in serious threat of losing at least one teacher if student numbers continue to decline.
Link to Sean speaking about Forestry .
https://www.facebook.com/saveleitrim/videos/351141082412777/

Agriculture

With agriculture currently contributing many fulltime and part-time jobs in Leitrim, Sean, who comes from a part time farming background himself, is well versed on the major challenges that farmers in the north west are facing even ahead of a possible no Brexit deal for the UK. We all agree that farmers need to have the opportunity to plant some or all of their lands if they so wish and get alternative income but  Irish and foreign investment companies and non farmers are taking advantage of the tax breaks and grants provided by the Irish taxpayers.  Funding the rich investors to gain valuable tax breaks in the name of a green agenda.  If our government decided to provide a similar scheme for young farmers where loans at a fixed rate of 2 per cent rather than forestry as the only option through a programme similar to the land commission this could simulate some activity in rural areas other than sitka spruce /monoculture cash crop. He also hit out at the IFA and the lack of information on live exports to the UK with lower tariffs if the UK leaves the EU and the implications for small farmers. A situation may arise where the tariff on live exports may be less than 4 per cent while processed beef could be over 20 per cent. Bord Bia needs to come out and make a clear statement on the matter.

Small Business

In relation to small businesses, if the same tax breaks were available to small businesses in Leitrim as given to the forestry programme, we could begin to rebuild rural communities. The issue of rates is a continual problem for small industries and businesses throughout the country and the cost of finance and working capital. Over the past forty years Sean has been involved in several community based groups and knows firsthand the struggles local business are facing in order to stay in business.  Regarding community banking there is absolutely no reason why the government has to protect our mainstream banks from competition from a community banking system which is ready to go if the Minister for Finance and the Central Bank approves.  Unfortunately community banking has been already been rejected by the Minister for Finance”. Our present Credit Union structure  and Post office networks could be made available to roll out through a 200 year old Sparkassen Bank from Germany who are available to support the project. The solution is already in place it only takes political will from our government to get the ball rolling at no expenses to you the taxpayer unlike the pillar banks. Please go to the link –Source  http://publicbankingalliance.ie/<http://publicbankingalliance.ie/

In conclusion Sean Wynne shares the same views and frustrations held by the vast majority of people in the county as regards how the health service is being run.  “In relation to the HSE and the comparison with Scotland NHS with a population of over half a million extra population is run for half the Irish expenditure.  Administration within the HSE has increased by 60% since 2011 and we still have no solutions.

Sean Wynne on Pensions and the problems confronting us all.

Worrying about where we’ll be in ten, twenty or thirty years’ time doesn’t generally feature in most conversations but on my canvass I have found on the doorsteps fear among the aging population and the pension crisis facing many of us.

This may partly explain why it’s only now that the extension of the qualifying age for the State Pension to 67 next year has become such a big issue in the election campaign 2020.

It’s happening next year. That concentrates the mind of everyone on the doorsteps.

Many people hitting 65 are contractually obliged to retire from their jobs especially in the public sector and many without having the full forty years service.

If you don’t have a private pension  or AVC’s- and that’s just under two thirds of those working in the private sector – will have to rely on unemployment benefit until the State pension kicks in, currently at 66.

The  politicians  of the main parties running this country for the last 80 years of all stripes have been finding out, many people think this is unacceptable.

The idea of extending the qualifying age for the State Pension was first mooted in a Green Paper on Pensions published in 2007 under Fianna Fail. It was eventually introduced in 2011 in the depths of the financial crisis. This was considered the best time to introduce something as unpopular as this.

It’s important to note that the thinking behind the move was there before we plunged into the nightmare of the pension funding issue.

For example a semi state employee who retires before 65 will  get  202 Euro a week while a non contributory person will get 238 euro per week.

One of the reasons noted then is that Ireland’s youngish population by European standards meant we were enjoying a situation where six people were working for every one retired person. But by 2050, it was and still is, more or less thought there will be less than two people working for every retired person.

Lots can happen in thirty years. We may get an influx of immigration or a burst of fertility.

I’ll believe that more of us will be working for longer. We need more of us to be paying into the system for longer. That part of the equation has been left behind in the debate by the spin doctors in the parties.

In 2017, the Citizen’s Assembly concluded that the mandatory retirement age should be abolished. The outgoing government’s Pensions Roadmap says the issue should be kept under ‘close review’ and that it will “…consider the merits of restricting the capacity to use mandatory retirement provision relative to the prevailing State pension age…”

Given the current debate over pensions until after the election, it seems inevitable now that mandatory retirement ages in employment contracts will come under serious legislative scrutiny whoever wins the election and the TD’s that you elect.

Pensions, whether they’re private or state, how they’re designed, how they’re invested, how they’re taxed, all of this is about to become one of the core issues in the economy in the coming decades. You need someone to represent you before its too late.

Just look at the pensions our TD’s receive .

Vote No 1  for Sean Wynne

——– Original message ——–

Date: 28/01/2020 12:44 (GMT+00:00)

To: today@rte.ie

Subject: Ref Andrew McCann and pensions

Dathi and Maura,

Love your show and watch it most days. Love the recopies and delicious food cooked, made so simply to understand.

I am writing to Correct/add to some thing Andrew McCann said on Mondays show ref pensions, he forgot to mention that some contributory pensioners do not get the full pension. Since 2012 the Labour party/ Fine Gael government took the four streams of contributory pension divided them into 6 streams, reducing each stream with the exception of the top stream. That means now the contributory pensions are divided up as follows, Stream 1, – 248.30, Stream 2, – 243.40, Stream 3, – 223.20, Stream 4, – 211.40, Stream 5, – 161.80 and Stream 6, – 99.20. So technically a person who worked all their life can, and do, end up worse off than a person who never worked or paid a contribution to the state.

Hope you will correct this as not all contributory pensioners get 248.30.

Thanking You

——– Original message ——–

From:

Date: 29/01/2020 14:14 (GMT+00:00)

To: bryan.dobson@rte.ie

Subject: Brendan Howlan interview

Bryan. Could you ask the the leader of the labour party during your interview tonight  “Why does he believe that working class people should vote for the Labour party after what they the Labour party did when in government with Fine Gael, by introducing in the 2012 budget, a system that penalised the working class due for pension, by splitting the pension system into a two tier system, and reducing the pension from Sept 2012 by €20, and penalizing the married women who left employment to raise their children before returning to the workforce ?”

Name Removed for GDPR reasons

Thanking you,

If you would like to contact me  or help out in the campaign please email   Seanwynne2019@yahoo.ie                  Mobile  0894476275

Please consider supporting me on Saturday the 8th of February so that I can bring your views to Dail Eireann

https://www.oceanfm.ie/2019/03/25/community-banking-meeting-scheduled-for-drumshanbo/ 25/03/2019 Ocean FM

A public meeting will take place in the Mayflower Community Centre in Drumshanbo tomorrow evening to promote the community banking model.
The Guest speaker for tomorrow’s event is the Joint Chair of the Public Banking forum, Seamus Maye. Please follow link –
https://www.facebook.com/SeanWynne2019/videos/256714205236000/