Month: April 2009
mobile phone mast halted in Bayside!
QUICK ACTION by residents in Bayside Square resulted in Fingal County Council being forced to move to prevent an application for a mobile phone mast by Threefold on the roof of the Squash & Leisure Building as exempted development, as the building contains a creche.
Golden Circle Developers leave D15 high & dry
By Councillor Ruth Coppinger
IMAGINE THOUSANDS of houses left bereft of schools, open space or a community centre for years. Imagine green areas, playgrounds, parks and pitches left unfinished and/or withheld from residents for years while builders move on happily to their next profitable project.
Rivermeade residents wage war to defend the 40B bus
By Michael Murphy
RESIDENTS IN Rivermeade in North Dublin have engaged in a determined battle to hold on to the 40B Toberbu
rr route as a direct bus from the estate into the city centre. Dublin Bus announced that the route, which has been in place for decades, would be axed as part of their plans to cut 120 buses and 160 drivers.
SR Technics: Fight for re-nationalisation
By Councillor Clare Daly
THE ANNOUNCEMENT of the loss of 1100 jobs in SR Technics and the virtual shutting of the operation is a cynical exploitation of the situation in the Irish economy by this wealthy and successful multi-national. The impact on Dublin’s northside would at least be on the scale of Waterford Crystal and Dell in Waterford and Limerick respectively. It must be halted.
Stop subsidising the rich – tax them!
By Ann-Katrin Orr
THE GOVERNMENT have come up with yet another outrageous claim; this time we are expected to believe that the rich pay their fair share of taxes!
Brian Lenihan is trying to paint the image of a “highly progressive” Irish taxation system in which those who earn most pay most. To back up his claim he said that the top 1% of earners (who earn more than €200,000) pay 20% of all income tax. But this figure is misleading and Lenihan’s description of the taxation system is miles removed from reality.
ICTU’s 10 Point Plan: Is it fairer or better?
By Kevin McLoughlin
ICTU’s PLAN was to threaten a national strike on 30 March in the hope of forcing new negotiations around their 10 point so-called social solidarity programme There is a better, fairer way.
ICTU’s social solidarity programme relates to jobs, unemployment, pay and the banks. It says those who lose their jobs should be kept at 80% of their earnings for two years, via social welfare, on condition that they go on retraining. It also says bosses should resist lay-offs, and instead consider cutting the working week.
Budget to hit workers & poor
By Fiona O’Loughlin
REFLECTING THE scale of the economic crisis the government is to introduce a second budget that will contain €4.5 billion of new taxes and spending cuts. The latest exchequer figures show a potential tax shortfall of a further €3 billion and a shortfall in funding for government departments of up to €1.5 billion. If anything these projections will be an underestimation of the decline in the governments finances.
Unemployment Crisis – Organise to Defend Jobs
By Ray McLoughlin
BAUSCH AND Lomb – 200, KPMG – 200, lay offs in the first week of March continue the disastrous pattern of job losses in Ireland. Over 300 people were made redundant each working day in February in the South, 63,198 signed on the dole in the first two months of 2009! Unemployment is skyrocketing towards 500,000.
Redundancies are happening in all sectors, light engineering, construction, financial services. Further job losses are being proposed in transport, education and across the public services. Workers are looking into a black abyss of job losses, with all the consequent hardships and uncertainties facing them and their families? What leadership are the trade union leaders giving to the victims of this failure of capitalism?
Working people need new leadership
Joe Higgins: from Daily Mail, March 25, 2009
A ferocious campaign is now in full swing denouncing the proposal for a one day national strike on Monday next by workers whose incomes are being savaged, thanks to the disastrous economic crash brought about by the rampant greed of speculative and crony capitalism.
‘Strike plan is economic suicide’, thunders the Irish Examiner while the Irish Times brands it ‘national sabotage.’ Going one better Sunday Times journalist, Frank Fitzgibbon, speaking on RTE said the proposed strike was not national sabotage but was in fact ‘economic terrorism.’
We need a one-day national strike
By Stephen Boyd
DEFEND OUR JOBS, PAY & CONDITIONS
THE DESPAIR, anger and fear felt by many at the economic catastrophe which is unfolding at an unprecedented speed is reflected in the 120,000 who marched on 21 February, the huge percentages voting in favour of strike action in union after union and the collapse in support for the government.
Working class people are looking for a way out of the crisis. However, they have no faith in the government’s ability to deliver a recovery.
Brian Cowen falsely claims the government has no choice – it must cut public expenditure otherwise the budget deficit will spiral out of control and the national debt will be a major burden for years to come.
