Case Against Anglo Irish Accused Collapses

Four of the éirígí activists who were arrested for their part in a protest at the Anglo Irish Bank headquarters in Dublin in May last year were cleared of all charges today [Thursday] after the Garda case against them collapsed.

Ursula Ní Shionnain, Daithí Ó Riain, Robbie Fox and Eoin Ó Sé occupied the roof of the bank last year to raise a banner imploring “People of Ireland, Rise Up”.

The four were subsequently arrested, along with three other activists, assaulted by Gardaí and charged with trespass.

Today, a Dublin court found that there was insufficient evidence to convict the four activists.

Ursula Ní Shionnain said: “Our protest was a legitimate act of civil disobedience at a time of economic and political crisis.  We should never have been arrested and dragged through the courts but, today, we were vindicated."

 

“The people who should be in front of courts are the bankers and politicians who led Ireland to economic ruin.  They should be tried and convicted of destroying people’s livelihoods, leaving tens of thousands on the dole and looting the public purse.”

Ní Shionnain continued: “It should now be recognised that our three co-accused – Daithí Mac An Mhaistír, John McCusker and Pádraig Ó Meiscill – are equally as innocent.

“éirígí will continue with its campaign against the obscene bank bailouts and the vicious anti-working class measures being implemented by the Dublin government, using whatever means we deem necessary.

“We call on working people across Ireland to join us in this campaign – all of our futures are at stake.”

éirígí welcome resignation of Harney - Minister for Death

éirígí Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan has welcomed Mary Harney's resignation as Minister for Health and said that working class communities throughout Ireland would rejoice at her departure. She also said that Harney must be made to hand back any pensions she is now due to recieve.

Cllr Minihan said: “Harney has overseen and implemented the systematic dismantling of our hospitals and the public health care system in order to pave the way for the full privatisation of  it. The end result has been increasing numbers of hospital patients on trolleys, longer waiting lists, ill people having to travel long distances to receive treatment, prolonged suffering, lives being placed unnecessarily at risk and avoidable deaths.”

“At the same time as she was slashing hospital budgets and essential services, along with her cabinet colleagues, she was happy to protect the wealth of the bankers and developers by pumping tens of billions of euros of taxpayers money into bailing out the banks and paying off their private gambling debts. This was money that could have, and should have, been spent creating a first class health service accessible to all based on medical need and not on a persons wealth.”

“Harney will be remembered for her extremely callous and uncaring attitude and the unnecesary hardship, suffering and death caused as a direct result of policies implemented by her. Far too many families have mourned their loved ones who died because of delays in diagnosis and treatment as a result of policies she implemented. Few will mourn the resignation of Harney the Minister for Death."

Cllr Minihan concluded: “Considering the appalling legacy she leaves behind her and the enormous suffering she is responsible for, it is inconceivable that she could be allowed to feather her own nest and benefit financially from her time as Minister for Health. She must be forced to hand back her very substantial pensions and be brought to account for her actions and the unnecessary hardship and death she has caused.”

Roscommon Protest against Hospital Cutbacks

Tomorrow morning (Saturday August 14), a demonstration against proposed HSE (Health Service Executive) cutbacks at Roscommon County Hospital is to take place.  The protest march, organised by the Roscommon Health Action Committee (HAC) is to commence at the Hyde Centre in Roscommon town at 11am tomorrow morning and will proceed from there to the hospital itself, where a ‘Hands Around Our Hospital Protest’ will take place.

Like other hospitals throughout the region, Roscommon's has already suffered severe cutbacks and is bracing itself for more in the imminent future, including the possible closure of the hospital completely.

Roscommon County Hospital

A report commissioned earlier this year by the HSE West recommended the closure of the hospital.  Ironically, it transpires that the cost of having that report commissioned cost the HSE a massive €90,000, money which IMPACT Trade Union say could have kept 12 nurses or clerical staff employed from now until the end of the year.

Urging people throughout the West and Midlands to support Saturday's march, éirígí activist Gerry Casey said that there must be no compromise or backing down by the Unions in relation to the proposed cutbacks in the HSE West region.

Casey said:  "What is at stake here is of vital importance for future generations.  The planned cutbacks are not about reducing services or even closing hospitals due to necessity.  It is part of a planned strategy by the HSE, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil /Green party coalition to run down the public health service in order to pave the way for the privatisation of our hospitals and our health care system."

He added:  "The current health system we have is a medical form of apartheid where the wealthy get treated whenever they want, while those reliant on the public health service have to join ever lenghtening queues to receive essential treatment.  Such a system ensures that people suffer needlessly and die needlessly."  

"The release this week by the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) of figures showing the continued increase in the numbers waiting more than three months for a potentially life saving colonoscopy, is yet more evidence of the danger to life posed by the HSE and this administrations health policies.  People should be under no illusion.  Lives have been lost as a result of cutbacks and even more will be lost if they get to impose new cutbacks"

Casey continued:  "Mary Harney and her cronies in government peddle the lie that they have not the finance to properly fund our health service and that cutbacks are unavoidable.   But the bottom line is, as éirígí have repeatedly pointed out, that none of these cutbacks are in any way necessary.  Imposition of a wealth tax, the nationalisation of our natural resources and the proper distribution of the current finances at the governments disposal, would allow not just for a halt to any cutbacks, but also for a reversal of those already imposed and more importantly for proper new investment to be made to create an efficient public service available to all, based solely on medical need and not based on ability to pay." 

"Fianna Fáil and the Green Party have pumped tens of billions of euros into bailing out the banks and developers.  This is money that could have been used to fund our hospitals and invest in their future.  Given the choice of protecting the health and welfare of patients who rely on the public health care system or protecting the excessive living standards of the wealthy political and business elite, the coalition chose the latter."

"This is a fight that we cannot afford to lose.  There can be and must be no compromise or 'deals' on these cutbacks particularly from the leadership of the Trade Unions within the health service.  Reducing the cutbacks is not a solution - only the scrapping and reversal of cutbacks is acceptable.   Previous 'deals' have led us to this point.  As the INMO (Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation) General secretary pointed out recently: 'The INMO voted against the Croke Park proposals primarily on the basis that they require 6,000 posts to be taken out of our health service in a haphazard, uncontrolled and unplanned manner with scant regard for the impact upon patients and their needs and requirements.  We are now seeing the real impact of this flawed approach.'"

Casey concluded:  "Support tomorrows (Saturday August 14) march and rally in Roscommon town and all similar protests against the proposed cutbacks.  Send the message to Leinster House - Fund our Hospitals, Not the Banks."

Social Housing Leasing Scheme - a “bail-out for developers”

According to the housing and homeless charity Focus Ireland, there are currently in the region of 100,000 households on local authority social housing waiting lists across the State, 5000 people who are homeless at any one time and more than 93,000 households receiving rent supplement due to difficulty in paying their rent within the private rented sector.

At the launch of their annual report published last month,  they said that the Dublin government would fail to meet its public commitment to end homelessness by the end of this year.  They also warned that the absence of more effective action by government would only result in a deepening of the housing and homeless crisis as the need for housing is now greater than ever.

Describing those statistics as "shocking", Focus Ireland Life President and Founder Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy said that “these dramatic increases in housing need have taken place at a time when we have been building more houses than ever before.  How can it be that Ireland managed to build in the region of 250,000 homes that were not needed during the boom years yet we have still failed to provide enough homes for those who need them most?”

Questioning the governments priorities and lack of investment in housing, Sr Stanislaus asked "how can the government secure €50 billion to bail out the banks but at the same time cut welfare payments and continue to underinvest in housing and essential services?"

In county Donegal there are around 500 families on the housing waiting list, while here in County Sligo alone there are in the region of 1400 families waiting to be housed by both Sligo Borough and County Councils. 

Last year, the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government introduced what is called the Social Housing Leasing Scheme.  According to the Departments website, the supposed aim of the scheme is to expand the options "available to local authorities for the delivery of social housing. Properties will be leased from the private sector and used to accommodate households from local authority waiting lists. Leased properties will be allocated to tenants, in accordance with the local authorities allocations schemes".

Under the scheme Councils are entering into lease arrangements with property owners for periods of between 10 – 20 years.  Among the benefits the developer will secure is that their properties will be tenanted, managed and maintained throughout all of this period by the local authority.

Even better news for the property owners is that the rent they receive from the council will be guaranteed for the entire time of the lease, and that rent will be an ‘inclusive’ one that includes all rates, charges and taxes that may apply to the leased property. The houses will also be provided unfurnished and on  a ‘repair and insure’ basis where the Local Authority will be responsible for the insurance, maintenance and general repair of the properties. 

However éirígí Sligeach activist Gerry Casey has dismissed the scheme as "no solution" to the housing crisis and "nothing more than another bail-out  for developers". 

Accusing Fianna Fáil and the Greens of ignoring the plight of the homeless and those on housing waiting lists, Casey said:

"This is yet another shameful bail-out of developers  cynically dressed up as a measure to tackle the housing crisis.  The only people to benefit will be those developers who will basically have their mortgages paid and have their investment maintained at tax payers expense for between 10 to 20 years before being handed back to them in pristine condition." 

He added:  "For those in need of housing, being allocated one of these properties  by the Council to rent will not offer any long term solution.  All it provides is uncertainty as families will have no security of tenure.  Once the lease between the council and the developer runs out, the families and individuals in question will  be put out of their home and once again be placed back on the waiting list and in need of housing.  This is an unacceptable situation for families to be placed in."

"What families need, and what this administration has failed miserably to deliver, has been not just a house but more importantly a home.  Security of tenure is central to that."

"This also makes the threats to punish those who refuse to take up the offer of one of these properties by having them lose their place on the waiting list all the more despicable.  Housing is a right, not a privilege."

éirígí Tír Chonaill spokesperson Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig also attacked the scheme describing it as "scandalous" and "unjustifiable".

He said:  “Having local councils basically paying the mortgages of property developers and maintaining their properties at tax payers expense for between ten or twenty years is a scandalous and unjustifiable move. The developers who built these houses, driven by greed and a belief that they could make themselves rich on the backs of working families by selling the properties at grossly over-inflated prices, have now been left unable to sell them as the economy collapsed.”

“Along with the policies of this government and the bankers, this unbridled greed by developers also contributed greatly to the current economic crisis. Now their Fianna Fáil cronies are rescuing them by means of this long term scheme which sees tax payers pay to protect these developers investments while the developer doesnt have to spend a cent or lift a finger.”

“Fianna Fáil are happy to see families lose their homes and hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs. They are happy to impose savage cuts in income for low paid workers and welfare recipients. They are happy to see our young people emigrate once again and they are more than happy to shut hospitals and reduce and remove essential health services.”

He concluded: “However, when it comes to allowing developers take a loss or go out of business as a result of their greed, thats a step too far. Fianna Fáil insist that they must be protected, just like the banks. That's what this scheme is about. That's Fianna Fáil priorities for you.”

Thousands march to demand retention of Lifford Hospital

Thousands of people took to the streets of the border town of Lifford in County Donegal on Sunday (May 23) for a march and rally opposing HSE plans to shut Lifford Community Hospital. In sweltering heat, the large crowd assembled at the grounds of the threatened hospital before marching to the Diamond in the town.

Amongst those who addressed the Rally at the Diamond were representatives of the Save Lifford Hospital group, local clergy and political representatives as well as speakers from IMPACT, SIPTU and the INMO trade unions.

Speaking after the rally, éirígí Tír Chonaill spokesperson Micheál Cholm MacGiolla Easbuig who had taken part in the march with other éirígí activists, said that the demonstration sent a loud message to the HSE and their political masters in Leinster House, that the hospital is not for closing, and that they must fund our hospitals instead of the banks.

MacGiolla Easbuig said: “This Fianna Fáil led administration are systematically dismantling and destroying the public health service. Not only must their savage cutbacks be reversed, but our hospitals and the essential services they provide must be upgraded and provided with the necessary staff and resources so sadly lacking at present.”

He added: “There is a a general policy of slash and burn by Fianna Fáil and the Green party towards public health services in this country. Hospitals are being downgraded and shut down completely. Services are being reduced and moved further away from local communities. There are ward closures, bed removals, staff reductions and cuts in home help to highlight just a some of the outrageous and unjust cutbacks being imposed.”

“Make no mistake, the future of Lifford Community hospital is under serious threat. If we are to prevent its closure, then people power is the only way to do it. Todays march and rally was an excellent start but the momentum now needs to be maintained and intensified on the streets.”

MacGiolla Easbuig concluded: “The thousands of people who marched through Lifford today sent a loud and clear message to Fianna Fáil and the HSE. That message is to fund our hospitals, not the banks. As a community we have had enough of these savage health cuts and the closure or reduction of sevices in Lifford hospital will not be tolerated. We deserve a first class health service easily accessible and available to all based on a persons medical need, not their wealth.”

You can view more photos from Sunday's march & rally by clicking here

Right to protest asserted on the streets of BÁC

For the third time in eight days, éirígí activists in Baile Átha Cliath were again on the streets last night [Tuesday] in opposition to the right-wing economic policies of the Twenty-Six County government. On this occasion it was as part of a multi-organisational anti-capitalist block which formed part of the Right to Work demonstration outside Leinster House. As in excess of 350 protesters gathered at the Wolfe Tone monument on Stephen’s Green the Garda helicopter rattled noisily overhead and dozens of Gardaí watched on.

Following a number of short speeches the march attempted to set off, only to find the road blocked by a line of Gardaí and four Garda horses. With typical arrogance the Garda could provide no adequate explanation for blocking the free passage of a political demonstration.

Undeterred by the Garda tactics the crowd surged forward to chants of ‘Whose Streets? Our Streets!’, before making its way to Anglo Irish Bank Headquarters, just two hundred metres away. Outside the bank a number of speakers addressed the crowd including Cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson. The protest then continued onto Dawson Street before joining the Right to Work rally on Molesworth Street.

Even the constant rain could not dampen the spirits of the estimated 1200 people in attendance. So much so that even after the Right to Work rally has finished up to 150 people made their way closer to Leinster House to chants of ‘Regulation Doesn’t Work, Let the Banks Burn!’.

Once at the Garda lines the protesters were addressed by Brian Leeson, who encouraged people to show that they were not intimidated by the Garda tactics of recent days. With chants of ‘Whose Cops? NAMA’s Cops!’ the crowd did just that. Despite provocation from the Garda the protesters remained disciplined and dignified before returning to the other end of Molesworth Street and dispersing.

Speaking after the demonstration éirígí spokesperson and Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan said, “Tonight was another important step in building resistance to the NAMA republic. With each passing week the numbers of people turning out to these protests are growing. Nobody should think that we are going to win this battle in the next week or two. It is going to take months and years of hard work to reclaim this country from the golden circle, but it must be done.

“Each and every one of us need to make it our business to get our friends, families and workmates onto the streets. It’s a simple fact that 90% of the people of this state have everything to gain and very little to lose by a radical change in the way that wealth and power are distributed.”

If you are interested in joining or helping éirígí please:

Phone: 00353 (0) 86 236 72 98

or
Email: eirigimembership@gmail.com

New British Army Recruiters - FÁS

The article below is reproduced courtesy of Sligo Today


Who's taking the Queens shilling - It would appear that an Irish FÁS sponsored unemployment advisory office is now acting as a Recruiting Office for Her Majesty's Armed Forces.

The Millennium Jobs Club based in the Watch House Cross Shopping Centre in Limerick, whose letterhead has the FÁS logo along with the National Development Plan logo endorsing it's activities, has been advising jobseekers that there are 'many careers on offer' in today's British Army.

It fails however to advise that a new overseas military career could put the applicants directly in harms way as the British Army is currently fighting a war on two high-profile fronts, Iraq and Afghanistan. There are also many worldwide covert active service 'hot spots' enjoying the presence of the soldiers. In both primary theatres of conflict many deaths and serious casualties are being recorded on a daily basis.

The Limerick Jobs Club also omitted to inform any applicants that it's recruitment policy is illegal and that under the current Irish law stiff penalties could be imposed for attempting to recruit Irish nationals, in Ireland, for a foreign army.

The letter, dated 19th April 2010, to an job seeker enquirer is reproduced below. The addressee's name has been removed.

The 'Royal Irish Army', see letter below, refers to the Royal Irish Regiment with it's headquarters in St.Patrick's Barracks, Ballymena, Co Antrim and was renamed from the original the Royal Irish Rangers. Battalions of the Irish Regiments have featured prominently in all wars, including the present operations.

Several members of the regiment have been 'upgraded' to MI5 status and have been assigned to the spooks HQ, Palace Barracks in Belfast, where over 400 agents are currently based.

éirígí Sligeach activist Gerry Casey said “That Fás believe it is appropriate or justifiable to target the unemployed in this country by becoming recruiters for the British army is appalling.”

“This is an organisation responsible for the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and here in Ireland. They continue to occupy part of our country. British troops, including undercover troops from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, a sister regiment of the SAS, have been involved in military operations just across the border in Garrison in Co Fermanagh and in Derry in recent months.”

“The skies above Fermanagh and Tyrone are being used by them to train their pilots for their war in Afghanistan which has resulted in the widespread slaughter of innocent Afghan civilians.”

“Recruiting cannon fodder for foreign armies, no more than emigration, is not a solution to our unemployment crisis. While it may suit the Dublin government to see young Irish people squeezed by job losses and then dole cuts to emigrate or enlist to kill and be killed in the imperialist adventures of foreign armies, Fás must immediately cease their role as recruiters and propagandists for the British army murder machine.”

This is Criticial Because This is Class War

The proponents of capitalism never tired of telling us how it is not the state’s role to interfere in the ‘free market’ – that economic competition between private producers and investors is key to economic growth.

They never tired of telling us that incentives, in the form of profits, were essential to convincing ‘bold entrepreneurs’ to take investment ‘risks’. They never tired of telling us that this was the only way to successfully generate rising levels of economic growth and wealth that would, ultimately, it was argued, trickle down and benefit all of society. Nor did they ever tire of telling us that, if these investors happened to make bad investment decisions, then they alone would face the consequences; it was only fair that, in the same way as they were handsomely rewarded for the successful risks they were taking, so too should they suffer the losses when their investments failed. That is some of the logic of capitalism. So the theory went anyway.

On Tuesday [March 30], the Twenty Six County minister of finance Brian Lenihan exploded that particular set of myths with the announcement in Leinster House, that, far from the people being sovereign, they would, in effect, be paying the debts of private banks for decades to come. By his actions, Brian Lenihan has confirmed the contempt in which the political establishment holds the very people who elect them.

The detail of the further bail-out of the banking system is truly staggering in its scale: a total of €21 billion [£18.7 billion] to rescue a failed and corrupt system.

Of this total, €8.3 billion [£7.4 billion] will be pumped into Anglo-Irish Bank, for so long the play-thing of the Twenty-Six County state’s biggest property developers. It doesn’t end there either, as Lenihan announced that a further €10 billion [£8.9 billion] will be required for AIB alone. Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, AIB had already received €4 billion [£3.6 billion] of taxpayers’ money. To put this €21 billion in context, the combined health budget and education budget in the year that the bank guarantee scheme was agreed was €23 billion [£20.4 billion].

The consequences of this decision will be felt for a long, long time; the mass of people face unemployment, reduced public services and chronic levels of debt for generations to come.

The right of the people to quality healthcare, housing and education is being made subordinate to the interest of banks, speculators and developers. Workers pension rights are being sold off so that the fat-cats that bankrolled Fianna Fáil for decades can be saved.

On Tuesday, many of these property developers, almost all of whom regularly attended the Fianna Fáil fundraising tent at the Galway races during the so called boom years, had their loans transferred into NAMA. Among them were Liam Carroll, Bernard McNamara, Seán Mulryan and Johnny Ronan, the playboys of the Celtic Tiger, lauded by the corporate media as the men who were taking the big risks to build a thriving economy. These parasites, facilitated by their political wing in Fianna Fáíl, simply inflated the property bubble, forcing thousands of households to take out 100 per cent mortgages on homes that were incredibly over-valued. These householders are now expected to pick up the tab for this gambling greed.

The consequences of the bank guarantee scheme of September 2008; a scheme that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Green Party and Sinn Féin all supported, is now painfully evident. Secret meetings between senior bankers and Dublin government ministers thrashed out a deal that was foisted upon an unsuspecting public. The loans and deposits of all banks were guaranteed on that September night in 2008 with little detail provided as to the exact state of the banks’ loan books. Any semblance of democracy has been truly torn to shreds and all that is offered is the tired Thatcherite mantra, ‘There is no alternative’.

No alternative, it seems, to bailing out the rich and powerful in Irish society with billions of euro of taxpayers’ money, while workers who actually created the wealth are consigned to the dole queues. With high rates of unemployment, bosses are using the recession to try and force down the pay and working conditions of those still in work. The deal agreed between ICTU negotiators and the Dublin government this week represents yet another shameful sell-out of public sector workers. It is utterly astonishing that union bosses are agreeing to a four year pay freeze and cuts in overtime for public sector workers while tens of billions is being spent bailing out the banks. The privatisation of sections of the public sector will follow unless workers demand that enough is enough.

This system has never been so clearly exposed as the fetter on human development it is as it was after Lenihan’s announcement. War has been declared on workers who are being treated once again as mere cogs in a profit-producing machine. That these egregious amounts of bailout funds can be made available now to rescue the capitalist banking system gives the lie to the notion that there is not enough money in society to take care of the totality of the social needs of people.

It is a lie that this type of society serves the needs of anyone but a small minority. We, the working people, need to take as our starting point in our understanding of this the fact that it is the working class alone who are the creators of wealth and that it is only through exploitation that wealth passes out of their control into that of the capitalist. Most importantly, we need to understand that this bank bailout presents stark and condemning proof, if ever more proof were needed, of the fact that, in this type of society, there is an irresolvable conflict between the interests of the capitalist class and those of the working class.

The task for socialists and republicans now is to find ways of highlighting this reality to the working and unemployed people that are the victims of capitalism. For it is only through effectively agitating and organising among our people that we will have a fighting chance of ever building the forces required for this economic system to be pulled off its hinges and a new, socialist one, built in its stead.

This is a critical task because this is class war.