Archive for the ‘Ireland’ Category
A simple warning for the Green Party: don’t screw us on this
Saoirse McHugh, a Green Party Candidate in the February 8 2020 Irish General Election, recommends this Carl Kinsella article opposing Green Party participation in a Fianna Fáil / Fine Gael Coalition Government.
Saoirse McHugh, Green Party, Mayo
Hey, Green Party. This might sound crazy but… I’m from the future.
And I’m here to warn you that very bad things will happen if you accept Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s offer to enter government as their junior coalition partners. I’m talking lose all your seats, never-trusted-again, no-more-wolves-for-Eamon-Ryan bad.
But I accept that there are plenty of people, not just Mícheál, Leo and the lads, who are ramping up the pressure for ye to simply take the climate brief you want so badly and prop up the two boys until 2025.
Their arguments go like this: Ireland is in the midst of a crisis, therefore it needs a government. The Greens have the seats to plug the gap, therefore the junior coalition partner must be the Greens. The Greens are driven by the urgency of climate change above all else, therefore they should jump at this chance.
But you haven’t. Yet.
But if it makes so much damn sense, then why has this proposal remained in early negotiations, gathering criticism for the Green grassroots, rather than seeing a delighted Eamon Ryan skipping off into the sunset as the Tánaiste, or guaranteed a few spins on the rolling Taoiseach waltzer?
It’s simple: because some Greens know that what they want, including the demographics they need to keep onside, is not compatible with five more years of centre-right governance that prioritises profits, banks, big business and economic growth over saving the actual planet.
Long story short, I’m here to warn the Greens that if they go into government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, that’s it for them. Read the rest of this entry »
Unelected Irish Government signs letter to European Commission advocating legalized crime – Airlines Robbing Money – Cancelled Flights, No Refunds
Airline companies collect money from passengers who book a flight, often months in advance. Like all other merchants, operators like Aer Lingus and Ryanair are supposed to refund customers when they cannot supply the service. That is the law.
Paul Murphy TD asks : “ It seems Ryanair may be using dirty tricks to delay refunds. This person was unable to get their refund as the computer said the CAPTCHA was wrong. It looks right to me though, what do you think? Are there others who have had trouble getting a refund from Ryanair?”
Ryanair’s Never-Ending Loop
The CAPTCHA is not the problem. When I applied for the refund it said:
“Sorry we can’t process your application at the moment. Please try
again later.” When I tried it again I get the message about the
CAPTCHA. When I clicked on OK, the CAPTCHA changed. I put in the new
one, and the message appeared: “Sorry we can’t process…” You’re in a
never-ending loop.
Extend Health and Safety Authority powers on social distancing in Irish Workplaces – The Bad Example of Keeling’s Company
Paul Murphy TD :
If you walk more than 2km from home you face a jail sentence.
Yet companies forcing workers to work shoulder to shoulder without PPE face no inspections, no enforcement, no fines.
The Health and Safety Authority must start investigating complaints of companies breaking the Covid-19 guidelines. They should start with Keelings.
The Irish Examiner Reports :
TDs have called for extended powers for the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) in order to ensure social distancing in work places.
There is currently no state agency which has the statutory authority to carry out workplace inspections to ensure that appropriate physical distancing measures to protect against the spread of Covid-19 are in place.
Confusion has arisen over who would monitor sites after Rise-People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy says he was “passed from Billy to Jack” while trying to ensure that fruit producer, Keeling’s workers in Co Wexford, who have been flown in to Ireland from other states in the EU for seasonal work, could adhere to guidelines for their own safety.
The HSA has said that currently it has no powers in overseeing the Covid-19 guidelines, despite Business Minister Heather Humphreys stating in the Dáil last week that she was “talking to her officials about it”.
Previously, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said the HSE would oversee such guidelines.
However, the HSE Environmental Unit has reportedly stated to Mr Murphy that it is not their role either.
Mr Murphy written to Minister Humphreys to urge the Government to reconsider the issue as a matter of urgency, as a number of worksites, including 35 “essential” public housing construction sites, have restarted work with government permission, while others expect restrictions on other construction and other workplaces will be loosened when the current run of guidelines runs out on May 5.
Some people may be surprised that a government headed by Fine Gael Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is unwilling to take action against the Keeling’s Company – an explanation can be found in this image :
Taoiseach Varadkar Campaigning With Owners of Keeling’s Fruit Picker Company in 2015
The Fine Gael Government was lobbied in February 2018 by Keeling’s Boss, the Chief Executive Caroline Keeling, who wants tax laws changed so that her family’s personal profits can be dramatically increased. Read the rest of this entry »
Keeling’s Fruit Pickers’ Company Places 579 Workers in CoVid-19 Danger – Irish State Authorities Dawdle While Disease Gallops Out of Control
- Paul Murphy TD (RISE) “Passed From Billy to Jack” Over Keeling’s Fruit Pickers’ Company’s Failure to Protect its Workers
- Keelings: Minister Humphreys must give HSA powers to protect workers’ health
- Advice from two Ministers: go to HSE, yet HSE says it “has no statutory role”
“I have been passed from Billy to Jack in trying to get someone to inspect Keelings to ensure their workers are safe. The HSA has said that they have no powers in overseeing the Covid-19 guidelines, although Minister Humphreys said in a reply to me that she’s talking to her officials about it. The Minister for Finance explicitly said that it is the HSE which oversees them. However, now the HSE has said it is not their role. I have written to Minister Humphreys to urge the government to to urgently address this by extending the powers of the HSA, so Keelings workers and others can be protected.”
Video of engagement with Minister Donohoe in Dáil on 16 April:
https://www.facebook.com/paulmurphytd/videos/277643093252182/.
Copy below of letter sent to Minister Heather Humphreys this morning:
Read the rest of this entry »Tarlach Mac Niallais Radio Broadcast from 1984 – Gay Liberation Politics, the Partition of Ireland, Fighting Against a Carnival of Reaction
Previous Readers of this blog know about the New York Death of Belfast Gay Liberation and Socialist Activist Tarlach Mac Niallais. Thanks to an old friend and comrade of Tarlach, Cathal Ó Ciorragáin, we can listen to a New York Radio Interview with Tarlach dated October 9 1984
The interview concludes with a ballad sung by Tarlach.
Reading Lenin in the light of the collapse of the SWP and the ISO – Independent Left – Conor Kostick
Conor Kostick, a supporter of the Irish Independent Left Organisation, offers an interesting analysis of the problems facing the radical left in Ireland and across the globe.
In 2013, not long after the British SWP went into dramatic convulsions over the way their party failed to support a young member in her allegation that a very much older and more senior member had raped her, I had reason to be in Chicago. While there I met up with the International Socialist Organisation (at the time a relatively successful example of a revolutionary party), gave a talk on Ireland’s revolutionary years and attended a dayschool of theirs on Lenin and the revolutionary party. The bookstall had copies of studies of Lenin by Lars Lih, Paul Le Blanc and Tony Cliff.
Anyone wanting to encourage the development of a revolutionary party has, of course, to form an opinion of Lenin. Before the ISO fell out with their British equivalents (i.e. the SWP), their approach to Lenin would have been profoundly if not exclusively shaped by the British SWP and in particular by the leading figure in that party, Tony Cliff. It interested me that the ISO had a wider outlook on the subject than was usual in the SWP and the enthusiasm of the bookstall organiser meant that I came away with a copy of Paul Le Blanc’s Lenin and the Revolutionary Party.
The cover of Paul Le Blanc’s Lenin and the Revolutionary Party
This book was first published in 1990 and I had never read it because having inhabited a rather closed-minded organization, I felt there was little that someone closely aligned to the politics of Ernest Mandel would have to say on the subject that would be useful. After all, as I was told and believed at the time, I had been guided in my understanding of Lenin by someone with vastly superior politics to those of Mandel: Tony Cliff. More than this, as an SWP organiser in the UK and then in Ireland I had always used Cliff’s Lenin: Building the Party as the essential text for explaining the theory behind SWP party-building methods to those members who I anticipated would go on to play leading roles in their branches and nationally.
— Read on independentleft.ie/reading-lenin/
I have not read the books Conor refers to. I have read (and re-read) a different book about Lenin, Marcel Liebman’s “Leninism Under Lenin” – which belongs to, broadly speaking, the Ernest Mandel tradition which Conor describes. 
The opening paragraph of this review might persuade readers that time spent reading Liebman on Lenin would not be wasted : Read the rest of this entry »
State Services Versus Insulting Charity
A good approach :
An example of Insulting Charity : https://www.rte.ie/news/uk/2020/0425/1134767-truly-amazing-99-year-old-revels-in-record-uk-no-1/
Examples of Resistance to British Military Barbarism in India : https://tomasoflatharta.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/acts-of-defiance-against-the-british-empire-rebels-struck-for-freedom-in-ireland-and-india-100-years-ago-connaught-rangers-mutiny-and-udham-singh-the-patient-assassin/
“What Use Is it to Teach People About the Evil of Overcrowding When Their Wages Will Not Permit Them A Decent House?” – James Connolly in 1915
James Connolly in 1915 ridicules “Medical Authorities” advice on combating a TB Epidemic – 105 Years Later, in 2020, Irish “Medical Authorities” Follow the Same Script. It is the same in most other countries.
The Chief Medical Officer has said the National Public Health Emergency Team has entered the weekend with a growing sense of concern about compliance with the strict travel restrictions and social distancing measures that been in place since 27 March.
Dr Tony Holohan said compliance with the restrictions over the next ten days was critical to the control of the coronavirus.
He said the sense of concern among his team has been growing over the last week as evidence of some slackening of adherence social restrictions materialised.
He said the situation remained that he would not currently recommend the restrictions be relaxed given the behaviour of the disease.
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0425/1134732-holohan-coronavirus-restrictions-compliance/
Notes on Misery and Mortality :
Read the rest of this entry »
