Ógra Shinn Féin Mobilise For Health Rally!

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Monday October 23, 2006 18:01 by Colleen - Ógra Shinn Féin osfnational at yahoo dot ie

Ógra Shinn Fein mobilised in Dublin on Saturday to demand a public health system that delivers on the basis of need and not ability to pay.

They were also there to push their demands on an All-Ireland approach to Suicide Prevention and carried banners highlighting the issue.

Many activists also dressed up as patients on waiting trolleys, and one brave male Ógra even donned a dress, wig and make-up to enact Mary Harney. (Although he didn't get many kisses!)

At the Rally Gerry Adams challenged the Dublin government’s disastrous privatisation agenda for causing huge hardship and has meant that there is now huge inequality in healthcare delivery.

"Why doesn’t the government take it’s lead from the Proclamation, read on the steps of this building 90 years ago this year. The Proclamation promotes equal rights and equal opportunities for all citizens. The Proclamation is a declaration of social and economic intent for a rights based society in which the people - in which you - are sovereign. And it set a standard for the future care of citizens, 'to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally.'

"Government policy is totally at odds with this. Government policy is based on the notion that inequality is good for society."

The rally is part of an all-Ireland campaign to demand and win a radical transformation of the health system.

Ógra Shinn Féin will continue to highlight this campaign as we believe that Healthcare is a right that every citizen is entitled to.

As Gerry Adams put it in finishing his speech,

"Working together we can deliver a public health system that works for all the people. We will accept nothing less!”