Dublin City Council Expresses Solidarity with Council Workers Work to Rule

February 2, 2010

At its monthly meeting last night Dublin City Council expressed its solidarity with Council workers involved in industrial action against wage cuts.

The motion proposed by People Before Profit Councillors Brid Smith and Joan Collins said

“This council expresses its solidarity with the workers of DCC engaging in a work to rule starting on 25 January. The aim of the work to rule is to reverse the 17% average pay cut implemented in 2009. The pay cut and the current embargo on recruitment mean that DCC workers are currently working harder for less.

Public sector workers are being unfairly singled out to foot the cost of bailing out the banks. Every cent of the €4 billion savings in Budget 2009 has been poured into the banks. We pledge our full support to the workers of the Council in their work to rule and any ensuing strike action and recognise that any reduction in service from DCC staff is the fault of the current FF/Green Government.”

The motion was passed by 23 to 4. Only Fianna Fail councillors voted against.

Councillor Brid Smith said
“This vote shows there is widespread support for the action being taken by Council workers. Nobody can accept that those who provide essential services to the public should have their pay cut while those who created the economic mess get off scott free.

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Newsletter Joan Collins January 2010

January 31, 2010

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in Dublin 12 and Dublin 6W a very happy and prosperous New Year. However, I know this year will be very difficult for the 200,000 people who have lost their jobs in this crisis.

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Kerry Campaign Against Cuts: Public Meeting Launch

January 28, 2010

A new pressure group will hold a public meeting in Tralee to launch a broad campaign against the various cuts proposed by the Fianna Fail/Green government. The Kerry Campaign Against Cuts will meet at the Grand Hotel Tralee, on Thursday 11th February at 8PM.

Three organisations are taking part so far, and speakers include: Margaret O’Shea, from the Kerry Network of People with Disabilities, expressing some of the concerns of the Community Development Projects, Simon Quinn, from the newly formed Kerry Public Sector Workers Alliance, and Dublin Councillor Brid Smith, from People Before Profit, who has been very active in anti-cuts actions and demonstrations.

The Kerry Network of People With Disabilities has for more than a decade campaigned for the rights for people with disabilities. It organised a well-attended demonstration in Tralee in August 2009, where speaker Margaret O’Shea called the event "just the start" of the campaign by the Community Development sector. She also said, "We say No to cuts to social welfare, Rural Transport, Community and Voluntary sector supports, RAPID, Community Services Programme, closure of rural garda stations Education for young people with disabilities, minimum. These cuts will have a strong anti rural bias and we won’t take them"

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Victory for Schools as Independent Scraps Voucher Scheme

January 27, 2010

Irish primary schools celebrated a victory this week as Independent Newspapers abandoned their “Building for the Future” scheme just weeks after its high-profile launch.
It is the first time a major in-school marketing promotion has been scrapped and is an embarrassing climb down for Independent and their co-sponsors Bank of Ireland.

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Incinerator on the rocks? Protest this Saturday

January 27, 2010
As Dublin City Council says it is pushing ahead with construction of the Dublin Bay incinerator, major cracks are opening up in its plans.

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.

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