Incinerator on the rocks? Protest this Saturday
Firstly, the incinerator is to be run as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP), in the contract signed with US firm Covanta the four Dublin local authorities have guaranteed a supply of 300,000 tons of waste per year. If they fail to meet this figure, financial penalities apply. As a result of recycling and recession, total waste is at most under 200,000 tons a year. This leaves DCC with an incentive to produce more waste – either by reducing recycling or importing waste. Importing waste from another EU state is illegal so it would have to come from further afield.
Secondly, DCC have just lost an important courtcase with private waste collectors. They are now no longer obliged to bring their waste to the proposed incinerator.
Thirdly, the costs of this project are immense. To date € 20m has been spent on consultants alone. Its footprint is the size of Croke Parke, its height that of Liberty Hall. The whole thing is to be enclosed in a steel and glass structure.
Campaign launched to save Shanganagh and Rathsallagh Youth Centre
Youth workers in Shankill have recently learned that due to government cutbacks made by education minister Batt O’Keeffe, the Shanganagh and Rathsallagh Youth Centre soon faces closure.
Council Budget – Labour And Fine Gael Implement Cuts To Services And Abolish Bin Tax Waivers
By Cllr Brid Smith, People Before Profit Alliance. Labour and Fine Gael claim to be in opposition to the Government. Yet even though they have a majority on Dublin City Council, they had no problem passing on cuts in this year’s budget. The government has cut funding to the City Council this year by 6.3%. This amounts to a 20% cut in funding to the biggest council in the country since 2008.
This gives elected councillors a choice – to cut funding to housing, local amenities and services, to increase bin charges, rents and others OR to stand up to the Government.
No prizes for guessing which choice was made.
This budget abolished the waiver for bin collection for everybody on social welfare. It increased bin charges for the rest by 5%. In July the Council will impose VAT on all charges including bins by either 13.5% or 21%.
On top of this the budget for the fire service was cut. Funding to the BASE youth project in Ballyfermot was cut. And council rents for subsidiary earners was increased.
The same budget cut the rates for businesses by 2.4% and gave a further hand out to developers by cutting capital spending on social housing and giving extra to the council to lease property from developers. And all council workers have had their pay cut by over 17% in the last year.
Youth Projects in Dublin are under threat of further budget cuts.
•Youth Projects serve the needs of the most at risk young people across our city.
•A total of 33,790 young people participated in CDYSB funded youth projects in Dublin in 2008
•It costs €20 million per year keep these projects funded.
•This works out at less than €12 per young person per week
•Youth Projects and Services help young people achieve their potential and are essential to creating and maintaining healthy communities.
What we are looking for
•An immediate reversal of the 2009 cuts to Youthwork funding
•Funding for Youthwork projects and services to be maintained at 2008 levels for 2010 in order to maintain all frontline services to the most at risk young people in Dublin
More Pain For the Public As VAT to be Levied on Public Services
The PBPA statement follows a recent meeting of the Dublin City Council Finance Special Policy Committee, (SPC) where it was revealed that a case taken by the EU commission to the ECJ on the issue of Ireland’s failure to impose VAT on publicly provided services would mean VAT would have to be imposed on such services from now on.
Report on Dublin City Council Budget Meeting
At the Dublin City Council Budget meeting on 21 December 2009, Killian Forde proposed the budget as Chair of the Finance SPC and voted in favour of it. As a Sinn Fein member he was apparently, in breach of his party’s mandate. The most controversial content of the budget was the removal of the waiver for social welfare recipients of the waiver on bin lifts (the waiver remains on the standing charge of €95 per annum).
Sinn Fein says he went against the party mandate on the budget given their opposition to the removal of the waiver but this is not the first time that SF councillors voted in differing ways on the budget. In the past a number of their councillors voted for and others against the same budget, all of which contained bin charges. It seems though that this has been a step too far and Forde has resigned from the party saying he would be guilty of “chancery” if he voted against this budget.
Local residents and tenants groups protest at official court opening
Last year, developers pulled out of a PPP deal with Dublin City Council leaving local residents of O’Devaney Gardens – and those in the St Michael’s Estate, Dominic Street and Croke Villas communities – high and dry because, as one developer, McNamara said, the housing downturn and the economic slump had “rendered these projects unviable”. When the private partner is afraid they won’t make enough money, they just pull out with minimal consequences.
GOVERNMENT FAILURE TO INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE HAS CREATED CURRENT WATER CRISIS
The government are dishonestly suggesting that the current water crisis is purely the result of freak weather conditions or because of householders irresponsibly running taps. This is pure hypocrisy and dishonesty.
Protest at opening of new Criminal Courts of Justice
Kick Out Their Fianna Fail Backers
Build Houses for Ordinary People
Remind our welfare-cutting Government that we haven’t gone away
Join our picket: 2 pm, Saturday, 16th January
at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Parkgate Street.
The Truth about the Recession
Some facts about the recession
The Public Sector
Size and social welfare rates
Far from what the government would have us believe the Irish Public Sector is not bloated. The 2008 OECD Review of public services showed that spending on public services in Ireland in 2005 was third lowest of 25 OECD countries.
CSO data show s that current public spending dropped from 33.6% of GDP in 1996 to 28.5% in 2005.
According to CSO between December 08 and June 09 public sector numbers have fallen by 3,000.
Recent EU data shows that spending on social protection in Ireland was 18.2% of GDP in 2006 compared to an EU average of 27%. Welfare rates are the fifth lowest in the EU.
Pay
In response to a Dail Question from Joan Burton on 21 Oct 2009 the following information was given in relation to the incomes in the public sector and more generally
Income Tax Year 2007 Public Sector Employees All Employees
Range of Gross income Total Number Total Number
€0 – €10,000 49,747 414,298
€10,001 – €20,000 64,116 392,697
€20,001 – €30,000 69,766 379,180
€30,001 – €40,000 69,954 263,576
€40,001 – €50,000 55,586 167,904
€50,001 – €60,000 34,562 103,273
€60,001 – €70,000 22,555 67,776
Browse
Paul Murphy Td, People Before Profit Environment Spokesperson Calls For Immediate Ban On New Data Centres And Strict Limits On Electricity Consumption By Existing Centres
Promises to stand with local people to fight tooth and nail to block ecocidal megaproject planned by Google in Grangecastle in South Dublin. New figures
Eamonn Casey: Hypocrisy And Rape
Revelations about Eamonn Casey point yet again to the gross hypocrisy of the Bishops.These are mostly elderly males who think they have every right to
People Before Profit Condemns Violence And Arson In Coolock
Calls For Broad Mobilisation To Face Down Far-Right Terror Campaign The riot and arson in Coolock today is another shocking development driven by far right
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