Major victory for pro-Palestine boycott campaign: Dublin City Council passes
anti-Veolia motion

Dr David Landy of the IPSC welcomes the vote as a significant development

The international Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement yesterday evening scored a major victory as Dublin City Council
passed a resolution calling on the City Manager not to sign or renew any contracts with French multinational Veolia[1] - the operators of the LUAS
who have also tendered for the Metro North project[2]. Veolia operate Israeli rail, bus and waste services in the illegally occupied West Bank,
making them complicit in Israel's contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Indeed, Veolia has a direct involvement in building the infrastructure of apartheid in Israel/Palestine.

Supporters and members of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign held a vigil in support of the motion outside Dublin City Hall yesterday evening as the motion was being discussed.

The resolution, tabled by Cllr Joan Collins (People Before Profit), was passed by unanimously at the sitting of Dublin City Council yesterday
evening (May 10th 2010) and is an important statement of solidarity with Palestine by the elected representatives of a European capital city. This
solidarity mirrors the deep empathy that exists throughout Irish society for the Palestinian people and the widespread revulsion at the behaviour of the
apartheid Israeli state.

The motion to have Crumlin, Sean McDermot Street and Coolock swimming pools recognised as stand alone pools in Dublin City Council policy was successfully passed last night with a clear majority and great support.

Save Our Swimming Pools protest Dublin City Council 12th April 2010 from Paula Geraghty on Vimeo.

Thanks to everyone who turned up at the protest beforehand, the turnout was great.

We still have a battle on our hands. The body language and the response from the City Manager was still negative, he stated that there was very little money and it was likely that the Council budget could be cut by a futher 500 million Euro.

What we have to do as a campaign is get 100's of people to go to Sean Ardagh’s and Michael Mulcahy’s clinics, lobby for the monies, meet with the workers, advertise the hours that the pool is open, make it impossible to close the pools down. Keep up the pressure.

The local campaign will meet again soon, I will keep people posted.

By Cllr Joan Collins (People Before Profit Alliance, Dublin City Council)

DEFEND OUR COMMUNITY FACILITIES

STOP DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL PLANS TO CLOSE CRUMLIN POOL

Tuesday, April 6th @ 7.30pm

SCOUTS HALL,

ST AGNES CHURCH CAR PARK, (CRUMLIN VILLAGE)

Organised by SOS (Save Our Swimming Pool)

For more details: Contact SOS on 087 2535193 or Cllr Joan Collins 086 388 8151

Read more on SOS Campaign HERE

For the City Council Sports Policy to commit to include single stand alone swimming pools as an important part of its strategic policy towards the development of sport and leisure in the city.

For this strategic policy to acknowledge the important role that the councils owned and managed stand alone swimming pools play in the teaching, education and coaching of swimming and life saving in particular for young people.

For the City Council Sports Policy to further commit as part of its strategic policy to work with the user groups of the existing stand alone swimming pools in improving the efficiency of the management of these pools.

This commitment to stand alone pools will remain as strategic policy until such time as all existing council owned and managed stand alone swimming pools are replaced by integrated regional sports and leisure centres.

With this renewed strategic policy for the continuance of stand alone swimming pools the Culture, Recreation and Amenity department will actively seek financial and grant aid from all funding agencies for assistance in the running and maintenance of the current pools.

Cllr Joan Collins

The follow is a copy of the Managers Report 13/11/09:
The proposal to close the 3 pools emanate from a number of circumstances.
a) All three pools are over 30 years old, have reached the end of their design life and are effectively obsolete.
b) The adopted City Council Sports Policy is to provide integrated regional sports and leisure centres with a range of facilities including, pool, gym, steamroom/sauna, aerobics studios, sports halls, all-weather floodlit pitches; these top-class facilities to be located in commercial urban growth centres. This allows a range of family sport activities to be combined with other activities such as shopping, visit to library, restaurant visit etc. and generates more users. None of the 3 pools fulfil the above requirements. No credible marketing campaign could be mounted round any of them.
c) All 3 pools are grossly underused with previous users moving to other modern facilities both private and public.
d) All 3 pools cost between 5 and 10 times their income to operate and have a combined operating loss of €1.1m approximately. As previously stated on a number of occasions, this loss can be reduced by opening for less hours (say cancel all public hours and open for consolidated school/club use only). In addition all three pools require capital remedial works to plants, have high operational costs due to their age, and now require a major refurbishment if they are to continue to operate on a long-term basis. Comparison with similar private pools is not quite like with like as schools and religious facilities do not pay rates. It will be recalled that it was stated that significant voluntary work went into some of these pools also. (In relation to staff costs of 3 pools it should be noted that manning is kept to minimum numbers and that pay and allowances are at a nationally agreed rates for existing staff).

Come to the meeting to discuss how we challenge...

For further info text: 087 2917415

Come to the meeting to discuss how we challenge...

Water Rates...cuts in wages, welfare, community services....

St Andrews Community Centre, SCR, Rialto.

Thurs Feb 18th, 8.00 pm

For further info text: 087 2917415

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.

In a statement today Cllr Joan Collins, People Before Profit Alliance welcomed the decision of Dublin City Council to keep Crumlin swimming pool open.

She said "The decision not to close the pool from January 1 is a victory fro people power. The community should give themselves a very big clap on the back for forcing this turnaround. In response to the initial statement from Dublin City Council a vigorous and determined community campaign to Save Our Swimming Pool S.O.S was set up. It is testament to that determination from parents, school users and the workers in the pool that DCC have stepped back from the drastic closure of the swimming pool.

I am calling on DCC to make the same positive decision for Sean McDermott Street and Coolock swimming pools.

The local campaign wants to investigate setting up a management board, made up of the pool workers, schools and parents, to give the pool a new lease of life so that it will be used to it’s full potential.”

Cllr Collins looks forward to a positive dialogue with the Council officials over the next number of months.

Contact Joan Collins 086 3888151