IF you tuned into a recent episode of Sunday Politics on BBC1 NI, there’s a good chance you saw an angry Fiona Ferguson from People Before Profit lock horns with Michael Long from the Alliance party.
The Oldpark councillor explained where this fury came from.
“We know that there is money being made by people. Danske Bank just announced record profits, they’re a bank based here and yet we have people in my constituency who are going to foodbanks,” she said. “When people say to me ‘it’s a hard time for all of us’, ‘we’re all in this together’, I completely reject that and it makes me very angry.”
However, Ferguson is far from incandescent when she described how constituents of hers battle and fight such dreadful circumstances. They are “very good at making-do and getting by and they’re very, very good at helping each other”.
“People are very proud”, she explained.
Ferguson has been campaigning on behalf of her constituents suffering from the “travesty” that is the housing crisis.
“Ultimately, there are not enough houses being built”, she claims. She described how many constituents are “sofa surfing”, “living on blow-up beds” and dealing with other such shocking conditions and she has to fight tooth and nail for them “day-to-day”.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Cllr Ferguson was part of a campaign that saved a GP surgery in Ardoyne from closing and says the picket lines that she has stood on have attracted “loads of support”.
The councillor also expressed her worries about the far-right protests seen south of the border in recent weeks.
“They will be met with people on the streets if they dare protest in Belfast,” she warned, while accusing the Irish Government of “leaving space for the far-right to fill”. Regarding the upcoming council elections in May, Cllr Ferguson has only one message: “Vote for people that are going to stand by you in times of need. We’re doing our best to be there”.
