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Fire in the Minds of Irish Men and Irish Women - notes on the meaning of 1916 today

Date: Tue, 2016-03-15 11:22

What ideas inspired the men and women who rose up in 1916? How did those ideas fare in the Irish Free State founded in 1922?

Feminist unfinished business - 1916-2016 - 10 demands to begin righting Ireland's wrongs

Date: Wed, 2016-03-09 12:17

With historic working class centenaries occurring in recent years we have heard a lot about Unfinished Business. This message was strong in 2013 in reference to the 1913 Lockout and the inequality that still prevails in Ireland. Cries of Unfinished Business are once again being proclaimed in this centenary year of the 1916 Rising and it is true, we do have unfinished business.

We still have bosses and businessmen who could give William Martin Murphy a run for his money. The Republic that the rebels envisioned and enshrined in the proclamation has not been achieved and despite the rhetoric of the YES campaign we do not “cherish the children of the nation equally”, and we have a long way to go to get there, with particular work needed on Ireland’s hatred of women.

Planning to sell off public housing in Derry?

Date: Mon, 2016-03-07 14:00

You can always tell when there’s an election just round the corner. Investment announcements, over grinning politicians in the press looking for another go only this time they REALLY promise things will be better. Others hoping to be elected doing all sorts just to get their photograph in the papers, again promising us the moon and the stars. However the gloves are off in Derry’s Bogside as news filters out that a sizeable section of social housing stock, currently owned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), now plan to offer them up for sale to private sector housing bodies.

Several hundred residents now fear that private housing associations in the city will totally transform the way in which they have engaged with the Housing Executive over the past four decades. Particularly when it comes to levels of rent and of course allocation of housing which first gave birth to a new generation of street politics and the Civil Rights Association back in the late sixties.

Interview with Dublin squatters about opening a new place

Date: Mon, 2016-03-07 13:34

Huge numbers of people are now effectively homeless as they are unable to find somewhere stable to rent. Fortunately only a minority have been forced onto the streets so far, Dublin's hotels are full of families on 3 day rotation emergency accommodation. In some hotels such families are not allowed to use the front entrance. Thousands of others are forced to move into already overcrowded accommodation, perhaps with parents or friends. Yet more are coach surfing, moving around as they exhaust the charity of friends. And a growing number are sleeping on the streets or in tents, van and cars in park and industrial estates.

State Terrorism - French Authorities Begin Eviction of Calais Jungle

Date: Mon, 2016-03-07 13:06

True to their word, French forces are proceeding with their planned assault on the refugees of Calais, destroying the homes and shelters, beginning the re-displacement of thousands. The goal, as stated by Fabienne Buccio, head of Police management: to reduce migrant numbers to a “manageable” population of 2000. “There is a largely unseen, or little reported battle of Calais” she said, “which the French government is beginning to win. We must remain humble. The problems are very great. But yes, I think we are starting to make real progress”.

French Court Rules to Evict over 3000 Refugees

Date: Mon, 2016-03-07 13:05

French authorities have decided to bulldoze the homes of up to 3,500 refugees living in a section of the Calais camp. A court in Lille made the ruling today, one which Refugee Solidarity activists plan on ‘appealing immediately’.

LUAS workers 'spitting on the constitution says right wing nut

Date: Thu, 2016-03-03 18:01
George Hook doesn't take kindly to workers standing up to a multi-billion euro company for a bigger slice of the astronomical profits that those workers themselves generate.
 
LUAS workers are currently demanding better pay and conditions in the form of increased leave, overtime pay, increased lump sum payments to family members in case of death at work, pensions and bonuses. The cost of these is estimated to be around €3.5 million over a 5 year contract, which is dwarfed by Transdev's 2014 revenues, coming in at €6.6 billion globally.
 
That doesn't sound unreasonable considering that these same workers, and the 83,000 other Transdev employees like them around the world are the ones who generate this revenue.

Cadbury strikers resisting race to the bottom as parent company makes 2 billion profits

Date: Thu, 2016-03-03 12:14

Our solidarity to Cadburys workers who today begin an indefinite strike at the Coolock plant against the outsourcing of jobs.  The company is trying to destroy 17 properly paid and pensionable jobs to replace them with minimum wage ones.

Newstalk push the narrative of 'recovery'

Date: Mon, 2016-02-29 19:44
We're paraphrasing but that's the argument put forward by a veteran member of everyone's favourite gombeen party, Fianna Fail.In a debate with TD Paul Murphy on Newstalk's 'The Right Hook' earlier Noel managed to articulate the truly astounding narrative that if Fianna Fail, and the political remora fish that is the Green Party, had not gifted tens of billions of our taxes to secured and unsecured bondholders, we wouldn't have any money in our bank accounts.
 

Resisting closed borders at the Ha'Penny bridge in Dublin

Date: Sat, 2016-02-27 13:11

27 Feb at the Ha’penny bridge, as part of a European-wide day of protest, a crowd gathered to make a public display of resistance against the closed borders and direct provision policies of Ireland. The people refuse to silently tolerate the way mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who find themselves attempting to escape war and/or poverty are treated by and in our comparatively affluent society.

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