Sinn Féin backs anti-poverty rally.
By Pádraig MacDabhaid
Sinn Féin has called for widespread support for an anti-poverty rally to be staged in Belfast city centre on Saturday, 23 October.
d in supporting the rally, Derry Sinn Féin Assembly member Mary Nelis declared that ``a satisfactory standard of living, far from being an unreasonable demand, must be viewed as a basic civil right. It is now time for all people to stand in solidarity with the less well off''.
The rally, which is being sponsored by numerous charities, community groups and anti-poverty activists groups, aims to highlight the fact that three out of every ten households in the Six Counties are living below the poverty line. The organisers are calling for a £5 an hour minimum wage, increased benefits, a 35-hour week, repeal of anti-trade union laws, abolition of student fees and the 11+, an end to privatisation and a halt to hospital closures.
Marchers will be addressed by a representative of the Liverpool Dockers, Eamonn McCann, and trade union and community activists.
``In the Six Counties, the wealth is held in the hands of a minority, a point which is easily demonstrated by the fact that three out of every ten households earn less than £150 per week, whereas one out of ten households earns £650 or more a week,'' said Mary Nelis. ``In true colonial fashion, the wages for workers in the Six Counties are significantly less, sometimes 25 per cent less, than for those doing the same jobs in England.
``It is appropriate that the tribulations of those caught in the poverty trap are not only highlighted, but are addressed in a meaningful fashion. As we approach a new century, it is wholly unacceptable that the quality of life for many people has been impaired because the basic measures required to remove the veil of poverty have still to be applied.''
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