At the Monday November 7th meeting of Dublin City Council, Cllr Brid Smith of the People Before Profit Alliance moved the following resolution:
‘In light of the clear anti democratic Executive function afforded to management to privatise the bin collection service, despite three majority votes of the elected members to maintain the service in public hands, this Council calls on the current Government to repeal Section 4 of the Waste Management (Amendment) Act 2001 which provides that the making of a waste management plan will become an executive (management) function, a change from the Waste Management Act 1996, where the power was a reserved (elected member) function.’

A protest took place outside the council and was addressed by People Before Profit's Cllr Brid Smith, Cllr Pat Dunne and Joan Collins TD.

PROTEST AT CITY COUNCIL MEETING 6PM CITY HALL MONDAY 7 NOVEMBER

Refuse collection and waste management was established in Dublin in late 1800's to stop spread of diseases like cholera. Since then it has been a publicly run service. But now Dublin City Council are withdrawing this service from December 5th.
Under Section 4 of the Waste Management Act 2001, the city manager can over rule elected councillors on matters to do with waste.
He has decided to invoke these powers and withdraw a public bin services from the people of Dublin. His aim is to hand it over to private contractors who will eventually being in even higher charges.

In South Dublin Council, one private contractor, Thornton’s, is charging people €60 extra just to enter their service. They are also increasing the cost of each lift. Once the system is privatised, the waiver system for the poorest section of the population will be removed. Waivers only exist in three councils in the country at the moment – and one of them is Dublin City Council.
When the poor cannot afford to pay for waste collection, illegal dumping will increasing, causing a new health hazard.
On three occasions, Dublin City councillors have voted to reject the manager's decision and three times they have been told by management that he is going ahead regardless.

It gives me great pleasure to tell the people of Lower Ballyfermot that we have secured agreement with Irish Rail to erect noise barriers around the work sheds in the Inchicore Works.

For years the local people have had to put up with noise from the Inchicore Works where maintenance is carried out on locomotives and often in the early hours of the night and morning. Nobody minds the sound of passing trains but it is the engines idling on the tracks that cause major interruption for local residents.

So as your local People Before Profit Councillor I am delighted to tell you that after two years of negotiations, monitoring of train movement by local residents, petitioning and lobbying of both Irish Rail and Dublin City Council we have agreement for the erection of an double sided 8 metre high noise barrier around the maintenance works.

We want to thank Irish Rail Management for this outcome and we owe our gratitude to Joe Dunne and Christy Saul of Landen Roadfor sticking with this issue over the years and becoming expert “Train Spotters”. They have been relentless and determined and have worked hard with me to achieve this outcome.

We look forward to the improvements that this noise reduction will bring to the whole area. It should be completed within the next 8 weeks.

Well done everyone and if you want to get involved with other campaigning work in Ballyfermot, if you need help with issues or information, please do contact me.

I will be opening a centre in the Ranch for People Before Profit in the next month and will send out details to each home.

All the best for now

Councillor Brid Smith

Today family advocates for patients in the Rowan Unit in Cherry Orchard Hospital were informed by management that the unit will remain in full use for the present.
The HSE apologised to all patients and families who have been distressed by the lack of information on the future of the unit. Admissions had been cancelled in the unit for the past two weeks and up to last weekend five beds were empty.

Families of the three long term patients who live in the unit were also reassured today that any decision in the future on the accommodation for their brothers would only be taken after full consultation with the patients and their families.

Admissions to the unit are opened again and the HSE has indicated that a broader review, involving staff members and HIV advocacy groups has been put in place. This review will take at least one month to complete. The HSE management assured all involved that the respite service would not be closed but would be improved and enhanced.

This is very welcome news for the patients, the families and their supporters. Cllr. Brid Smith who had put a motion before Dublin City Council's meeting last night calling on the HSE not to close the service, was assured of the support of the vast majority of the Council. In the event the motion did not go ahead but a similar motion was passed unanimously by the South Central Area committee last week.

The proposed closure of the unit was also raised in the Dail by Joan Collins TD. In response Deputy Roisin Shortall indicated that she was shocked by the news and would investigate it further.

The HSE were very conscious that this decision was negatively received by the general public and received dozens of communications from political representatives, HIV advocacy groups, media and family members.

Most of Monday night's council meeting was taken up with arguments around the future of Temple Bar Cultural Trust
But by far the more interesting discussion for the rest of the meeting was around an emergency motion submitted by People Before Profit Councillors Pat Dunne, myself Brid Smith and Independent Councillor Ciaran Perry.

The motion, calling on management not to proceed with the sale of the bin collection service to private companies, was put before the council because on Friday last bin workers received a letter from Dublin City Council informing them they would be re-deployed, giving them one month to chose an option of where to and finally thanking them for their years of hard work.

I met an old friend on my way into the council meeting who has given 31 years of service to DCC waste management, most of it driving bin lorries. He was so offended by the one line of thanks and wishing him the best for the future contained in that letter. Perfectly understandable when his life's labour can be written off so easily and sold to the highest bidder to make vast profits.

Emergency Motion on Egypt passed at Dublin City Council 8th February, 2011

"This Council declares its total solidarity with the heroic democracy protesters of Egypt, and especially with those currently occupying Tahrir (Liberation) Square. It strongly supports their demands: for the immediate removal of the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, from his office as President; for the repeal of the anti-democratic Emergency Law (which since 1981 has given the notorious State Security Forces the right to detain people without charge or trial); for the dismantling of the whole Mubarak regime of murder torture and corruption; for full freedom of the press and genuine democratic elections. This Council resolves to refuse all collaboration with the illegitimate Mubarak Government or its agents.
This Council also calls upon the Irish Government to; a) end all diplomatic relations with the Mubarak/Suleiman regime until such time as a new democratically elected government is established; b) to make a public statement of its support for the democracy movement; c)to vote accordingly at the United Nations and in the EU Council of Ministers and European Parliament; d) to call publicly for Mubarak to be put on trial at the International Court of Human Rights at the Hague."

Councillor Brid Smith People Before Profit Alliance

Six billion in cuts in this year are intended to pay for fast and loose spending of the Irish and European banking gamblers. The cuts, involving 15 billion over four years,which in reality will take out 10% of GDP, will tear the heart out of the country, turning recession into wholesale depression. To add insult to injury, the interest charged on the IMF package could be as high as 10 billion per annum, taking a huge tranche from money that could be put into helping those least able to deal with the economic crisis. You can’t take that sort of money out of the economy without causing a downward spiral of recession.

Make no mistake. The EU/IMF are giving this aid package to allow the Irish Government pay the Banks, to pay the Bondholders – primarily the European banks who lent to Anglo and the other banks that have brought us to this mess. The Irish taxpayer will be paying in blood to save the billionaire financiers. They lent money recklessly to the Irish banks, who lent money to reckless developers. This is nothing but a transfer of wealth from the weakest in this society to the corporations and billionaires that played fast and loose in the investment markets. They took the gambles and now they, rather than the Irish taxpayers should lose out.

Working people, who struggled to buy houses in the property boom, who fell into negative equity prices dropped are now facing tax hikes and property taxes. The blame for this crisis can not be laid at the door of the Irish working class. It cannot be put on social welfare recipients, on minimum wage workers, on students or on public sector workers. Yet the four year plan is targeting these very same people.