People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett joined the panel on Vincent Browne’s TV3 Nightly News show on Thursday 30th April . Watch the show here
The latest ESRI Quarterly Report makes frightening reading. It claims that Ireland is entering a depression that is worse than any industrialised country experienced since the 1930s.
The economy is due to shrink by 9.2 percent – which is of the same magnitude as the US experienced after the Wall St Crash of 1929.
Unemployment is set to rise so that almost one in five workers will be without a job.
In its Quarterly Report of last Winter, the ESRI predicted that the economy would shrink by 4.1 percent – just half of their current prediction.
The obvious question is: why is the prognosis getting worse? Why is the Irish economy going down much faster than any mainstream economist thought?
The ESRI cannot answer this question because it is locked into the conventional wisdom of the Irish economic establishment.
It concludes its report by advocating more wage cuts and more cuts in public spending to make Ireland ‘competitive’.
But it is precisely the wage cuts which have made the recession deeper.
Richard Boyd Barrett and Hugh Lewis of the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) recently held a public meeting in Dun Laoghaire to set up a Community and Unemployment Action Group in the area.
Hugh Lewis (Ballybrack PBPA)
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dun Laoghaire PBPA)
PBPA have been leafleting estates and the lengthening doles queues in Dun Laoghaire are calling on all those affected by or angry about spiralling unemployment to attend the meeting and get involved in establishing a group to campaign for action on the jobs crisis.
PBPA also believe that the savage cutbacks in social welfare in the recent budget, such as the scrapping of the Christmas bonus and cuts in rent allowance, make the setting up of organisations to protect the unemployed a priority.
PBPA believe that the Council should establish direct labour units to give jobs to the unemployed doing important work in the community, such as, repairing boarded up council houses, upgrading schools and hospitals and providing local amenities and community services.
The wishes of the public for the future of Dun Laoghaire Baths were dealt a major blow at a specially convened council meeting on Wednesday 1st April to discuss the new Dun Laoghaire County Development Plan.
At the meeting the County Manager included a Special Local Objective “SLO” for the provision of an East Pier to Sandycove Enhancement Scheme in his draft written statement. Councillors had the option of accepting, amending or rejecting this objective.
The Manager’s objective came despite the fact that the enhancement scheme was roundly rejected by the public following a series of street marches, public meetings and hundreds of public submissions.
Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance, Cllr Gene Feighery, and Bob Waddell of the Sandycove Baths Action Group, were united in their condemnation of the recent decision taken by Councillors to ignore public opinion on Dun Laoghaire Baths in favour of the County Manager’s objective.
At the meeting Cllr. Feighery put forward a motion rejecting the Manager’s special local objective and requesting Councillors to support her in replacing it with the following motion which she believes reflects the democratic will of the people with whom she marched.
Cllr. Feighery’s motion read:
That Development of Dun Laoghaire Baths will retain the existing building with a modest extension to accommodate proposed public amenities/facilities which includes swimming facilities, and which does not include high rise or residential development. That infill development is minimised to provide adequate sea defences and that the scale of any upgrading and renewal project is limited to the area between the East Pier and the Baths.
Unfortunately, she only found support in four of her fellow councillors and the motion fell.
The removal of the triple lock not only further endangers Irish neutrality but could lead to Ireland’s involvement in an EU or NATO inspired war.The
Derry People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin said, “People Before Profit add our voice to the rejection of racist, hateful and divisive abuse directed at Councillor
On Thursday of last week, as the Freedom Flotilla Coalition was preparing to leave Guinea Bissau with a humanitarian aid shipment for Gaza, the flotilla
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