{"id":4158,"date":"2020-05-18T11:40:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/?p=4158"},"modified":"2020-05-18T11:40:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:40:13","slug":"consumers-must-come-before-big-business-regardless-of-fine-gael-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/consumers-must-come-before-big-business-regardless-of-fine-gael-comments\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumers must come before big business, regardless of Fine Gael comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sinn F\u00e9in and Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that it is not acceptable that businesses would be put before consumers after comments by Deirdre Clune MEP at the weekend that suggested passengers on cancelled flights should take vouchers over cash refunds and that passengers must consider the \u201cviability\u201d of airlines.<\/p>\n<p>Teachta Crowe said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe comments by Deirdre Clune, Fine Gael MEP for Ireland South, at the weekend came as a shock to me. While there are questions about the long-term viability of airlines, the consumer and their hard-won rights must come first at all times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPut simply, a passenger on a cancelled flight cannot pay their rent with an airline voucher or use it to put food on the family table. Their financial situation may well be vastly different to when they originally purchased the flight, with their income drastically reduced or their job even gone as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions or its economic fallout.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile it may come naturally to those in Fine Gael to put big business before the consumer, there must be a recognition now that vouchers are not an acceptable form of refund to consumers and cash must be the first offer to any disadvantaged passenger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sinn F\u00e9in and Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has said that it is not acceptable that businesses would be put before consumers after comments by Deirdre Clune MEP at the weekend that suggested passengers on cancelled flights should take vouchers over cash refunds and that passengers must consider the \u201cviability\u201d of airlines. Teachta Crowe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4159,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions\/4159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}