Report from protest in support of Kazakh oil wokrers

A three hour debate in the Dail yesterday once again highlighted the awful legacy left to thousands of homeowners in this State from a blatant failure to implement proper building regulations in the construction of homes during the property bubble era. Yesterday it was the creeping destruction caused by pyrite that was in focus but much reference was made also to those homeowners, such as the residents of Priory Hall on Dublin’s north side, who are living with the agony of being forced out of their homes which are serious fire hazards because the fire safety regulations were not implemented during construction.

In the September issue of the Union Post David Begg, ICTU general secretary and Jack O’Connor, ICTU president, argued against the government’s current economic policies. However, one thing was starkly missing from both of their statements - in fact it was missing from the whole newspaper – there was no mention of a strategy to defeat the government’s attacks on working people.

"Rashers, applying his mind to the matter, began at the beginning. Anything that lived; men, women, children; dogs, pigeons, monkeys; even lesser things like cockroaches, flies and fleas, had to eat. He had been of their company for long enough to sympathise with them all - the child rooting in the ashbin, the cat slinking along the gutter, the cockroach delicately questing along the wooden joins of the floor, its grey blue body corrugated with anxiety. These were sometimes his competitors, but more often his brothers. He could never watch a dog nosing in a bin without a feeling of sympathy and fellowship."