People Before Profit

Friday 3rd & Saturday 4th September 2010

The Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland

Admission €10 for conference or €5 per session.

To register send a mail to: conference@irishantiwar.org

Session 1:- Friday 3rd September 7.30pm

Registration: 7.00 - 7.30pm
Opening Address: Jimmy Kelly, Irish Regional Secretary, Unite the Union
IRELAND AND THE UNITED NATIONS
Speakers:

• Senator Mark Deary, Green Party Foreign Affairs Spokesperson
• Dr. Ed Horgan, International Secretary of PANA
• Padraig Mannion, Research Officer of the Workers Party
• Dick Roche TD, Minister for European Affairs

Chair: Noel Dorr, former Secretary-General of the Dept. of Foreign Affairs, author of ‘Ireland at the United Nations’

Attend On-Line: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/142929312

Session 2:- Saturday 4th September 10.00am - 1.15pm

Members of the Save Our Seafront group (SOS) - the group that organised protests of thousands a number of years ago against plans to build apartments on the Dun Laoghaire Baths site - will campaign this weekend during the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, calling for action by the Council to restore the derelict baths as a public swimming amenity.

SOS campaigners, along with many local residents, are now very frustrated that it is five years since huge numbers of local residents marched on the Baths issue and yet, despite promises, still no action has been taken by the Council to restore the baths.

SOS will have a visible presence on Saturday and Sunday of the Festival near the baths, accompanied by a large banner saying: “Give us our baths now!” and intend to distribute thousands of leaflets to festival goers.

The SOS leaflets will also advertise a public meeting on the issue of the Baths that will take place the following week, on Wednesday July 26th at 7.30pm in the Kingston Hotel, on Dun Laoghaire’s seafront.

Families call on Minister For Health to intervene
On Thursday 22nd July the Save Cherry Orchard Hospital Campaign took their protest to the HSE main offices beside Heuston Station.

Management in Cherry Orchard have told family and community representatives that they intend permanently closing an 18 bed unit which houses patients with althziemers and dementia.

Families of current patients in the Laurel Unit have bitterly complained and protested that shifting their loved ones out of the environment that they have become familiar with will cause immense distress and upset. The families are also concerned that this will not be the last move that will be forced upon them.

The hospital have a staffing crisis every Summer and hide behind the recruitment embargo to force through cuts to the service. This time engaging four new nursing and care staff would resolve the staffing crisis in this unit and would ensure it could remain open.

Marie Dodrill whose husband lives in the Laurel Unit said "No way will I give the hospital permission to move my husband. This has become his home and is one of the best units in the hospital. We will fight to keep the Laurel Unit open and to keep every bed in Cherry Orchard Hospital. The families are calling on the Mary Hraney to get involved in sorting this problem out. This is not a big problem but it is having a huge impact on all the families involved."

Otis lift strikers are on their third day of industrial action against their employer Otis who have chosen to impose compulsory redundancies rather than accept voluntary redundancies. Due to an injunction taken out on them at their picket in Dublin Airport TEEU members held a mass picket this morning 14th July at Otis Head office in Bluebell.

They had a hugely successful picket in Dublin Airport where Otis workers received support from other workers they had supported when they were on strike.

Trade Union TV had sought an interview with a spokesperson from Otis but no one was available to talk in Otis's Bluebell office. But according to their website: "At Otis, people are our most important asset....Otis offers a supportive environment where employees are encouraged to develop their skills and talents to their fullest potential."

BIN CHARGES & PRIVATISATION, PLANNED WATER CHARGES PART OF LONG-TERM AGENDA TO PRIVATISE ALL VITAL PUBLIC SERVICES

In a statement, Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance (PBPA) has said the announcement today by SIPTU that Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Council workers will strike against County Manager, Owen Keegan’s, plans to discontinue the Council bin service, were entirely justified.

PBPA said the Manager’s recent announcement of his plan to discontinue the service was the culmination of a long term campaign to privatise waste collection, which began with the introduction of bin taxes ten years ago.

PBPA said that the introduction of bin charges and the commercialisation of waste collection was rigged from the start to favour the private operators and now opened the way for the privatisation of water and other vital services.

PBPA said that private operator PANDA now had a virtual monopoly of waste collection in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, and that even if its charges were slightly lower currently, they would increase in years to come, as had happened everywhere else in the country.

In a statement, Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett has said the failure of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Co Council and the HSE to deal with a rat infestation affecting Council tenants in Dun Laoghaire was totally unacceptable.

Tenants along a row of Council houses on Desmond Ave in Central Dun Laoghaire have been plagued with rats for several weeks but measures taken by the Council and the HSE have failed to address the problem.

Tenants who have children in their homes are particularly terrified and already very young children have encountered rats jumping out of bins in the communal lane at the back of the row of Council houses.

In desperation, some tenants have even taken to trying to kill the rats by hand using skewers forks and shovels.

Cllr Boyd Barrett has contacted the Council to tell them that the measures taken to date to deal with the infestation have not worked and that immediate action is required.

Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett said:
“This situation is totally unacceptable. Council tenants should not have to put up with these intolerable conditions. The Council, as landlord, and the HSE, as the health and safety authority, have an obligation to sort this problem out immediately.

While no-one should have to put up with this, it is particularly worrying that children are encountering these rats and their safety is being put at risk. Young children - as young as 2 years old - have been in the lane, when rats jumped out from behind bins – terrifying them. Something has to be done about this straight away.

A little over 300 people took part in a lively and colourful demonstration in Ballyfermot today, 1st July, to protest against ward closures in Cherry Orchard Hospital.

Families and carers were joined by community activists, local political representatives and the wider community in a show of solidarity with patients suffering from althzeimers and dementia. The Laurel Unit in Cherry Orchard hospital which provides 18 beds for such patients is due to be closed down.
People marched through Ballyfermot to the hospital where family members whose loved ones are affected by the proposed cuts handed in a local petition to hospital management.

Speaking at a rally afterwards Brid Smith, local councillor for People Before Profit ,said that "this is the closure of service in Cherry Orchard by stealth. If they do not lift the recruitment embargo in the HSE and start to fill the 22 nursing vacancies the hospital will not survive. The HSE have launched an expensive campaign against elderly abuse and yet are engaging in abusing the elderly by shutting down local hospital and vital services."

Family members spoke movingly of how the closure of the ward and the displacement of their loved ones to other areas of the hospital would have a traumatic effect on the patients.

Councillor Joan Collins called on everyone to support the campaign to keep all beds open as had been achieved in the past by the families and the people of Ballyfermot. "There is a mechanism for management to have the recruitment embargo lifted to employ extra nurses if they had the political will to do so. It is up to people power to force them to show respect for the elderly".

Also speaking where Gino Kenny, PBPA councillor for North Clondalkin and local Eirigi councillor Luise Mineghan.