Political agreement '˜will not change' lot of Derry's poor

The restoration of power-sharing may have little impact on working class people in Derry who are trying to secure decent jobs and put food on the table, a local community worker has claimed.
Stormont.Stormont.
Stormont.

Community activist Frankie McMenamin said that many people were watching the talks process at Stormont but felt that whether a deal was struck or not it may not make a noticeable difference to their lives.

Mr McMenamin claimed that Sinn Fein are “doing their best”, but may be “flogging a dead horse” in terms of getting the DUP to return to power-sharing at Stormont.

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“Even if they do get it together, it is still Britain making the decisions on issues such as the budget, and that won’t help the working poor, the working class,” he said.

“There will still be high unemployment in Derry and while there does seem to be more people working, a lot of the work is low paid, zero hours and ‘YTP’ type schemes, which they class as working but to me is not working as you can do the training and it can lead to nowhere.

People want proper jobs, proper wages instead of struggling to pay the rent and buy food,” he added.