As the EU line up to kick Ireland again, unions must lead in defending jobs, sustainable Irish business & provision of improved public services
Brendan Ogle: As the ESRI predict the worst recession in our history, trade unions and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) have led the way in providing a comprehensive and workable counter-analysis to the hawkish calls for austerity from Ireland’s crushing neoliberal consensus.
In the very weeks when Fine Gael and Fianna Fail first seemed to rule out tax increases going forward (including the ongoing refusal to accept the Apple Tax), and then state-led borrowing, an attack began on the COVID-19 payment, with people who have been forced into isolation being targeted for ‘being better off’ on €350 a week. Now we learn that, of €750bn targeted by the European Commission in a recovery fund of grants and loans for 27 member states, Ireland is earmarked for just €1.9 billion, a tiny 0.25% of the total. This for a country that Eurostat found had been forced to pay 42% of the total cost of the European banking debt following the financial crash.
Karen Doyle and Julia Marciniak from Unite Hospitality & Tourism branch take a look at the conditions workers face in Ireland’s Tourism sector.
Cliffs of Moher Co. Clare
What should be a time when most people are planning holidays, going on day trips, or planning some weekends away we find ourselves wondering if perhaps next year will be better? The global pandemic of Covid-19 has brought life as we know it to a standstill. Throughout Ireland the Hospitality and Tourism sector has been hit extremely hard with mass layoffs and the effective closing down of an entire industry. This blog aims to take a closer look at the tourism industry before, during and after this emergency and will offer some ideas on how workers within this vital sector can organise to better protect themselves for a better future. The time has never been more pressing than it is now to join a union and through collective actions demand for a better, fairer future as this vital sector recovers post crisis.
The Government website (gov.ie) ascribes that “Tourism is one of Ireland’s most important economic sectors. According to the latest estimates, in 2018, out of state (Overseas and Northern Ireland) tourists generated €5.6 billion for the Irish economy. This figure rises to €7.3 billion when fare receipts to Irish carriers are included. Domestic tourism was worth 2 billion, meaning the sector as a whole was worth €9.4 billion to the economy”
Tourism and the Economy
According to the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation www.itic.ie Tourism is Irelands largest indigenous industry employing up to 265,000 people with 68% jobs outside Dublin. This is hugely significant given the number of tourists visiting here, up to €9.3 million overseas visitors came to Ireland in 2018 spending €5.1 billion in the local economy. Given the figures it is easy to see why governments, both local and national, businesses and workers are reliant on this sector to remain viable into the future. Therefore, in organising this industry it is vital that workers are viewed as essential components to help rebuild our local economies as the sector looks to welcoming tourists once again.
Dublin
Tourism and Céad Míle Fáilte
Since the beginning of this crisis our government, media and the wider public has rightly lauded frontline workers labelling themas essential. Indeed, these workers are helping to keep our communities safe and our shops open so that we can take care of ourselves and our families in these uncertain times.
Within all sectors of our economy there exists many other frontline and essential workers without whom the various sectors and the economy would simply grind to a halt.
Tourism workers are the face of Ireland. They are the storytellers of times past and the ones who give the world renowned céad míle fáilte to millions of tourists who visit our shores every year.
Working in the tourism industry is about telling the story of Ireland, workers draw from its unique and ancient culture with its vast and often troubled history in a way that brings the past to life, encapsulates the best of us at present, while showcasing Ireland as a future destination that has something to offer everyone.
Frontline workers in this industry are local ambassadors too, often helping tourists find their way about, answering queries and giving recommendations for where to eat, drink, visit and stay. These factors all help to contribute to the famous Irish welcome that visitors have come to expect, and it is one of the reasons why this industry thrives and why local businesses reap the benefits too, this is the beating heart of tourism, it’s where workers on the frontline of this industry excel at helping to deliver the best of what Ireland has to offer.
Working in Tourism: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Working in tourism can be rewarding, those workers we spoke to for this blog stated that getting to meet people from different parts of the world is a pleasure, educating tourists about Irish history and culture makes their job satisfying and for those workers who are outdoors or working in heritage and popular tourist sites work brings a sense of doing something different than the norm which these workers appreciate.
However, like their counterparts in the hospitality industry, tourism workers often have precarious work, earn low pay, get no extra pay for working on a Sunday, most workers have no job security and working conditions can be less than desirable.
Some workers do not receive their contracts or proper breaks, some complain of not getting their work roster in a timely manner, while one business we know of does not provide a toilet for their staff, yes, you read that correctly. Despite several attempts to resolve the issue workers here are still without the most basic of rights.
Many tourism workers have extensive knowledge of local and national history they hold university degrees, while many more attend related or professional courses to further their education in relation to their jobs, yet the pay and conditions these workers receive does not reflect the skills many of these workers have nor the overall input these workers deliver for the industry as a whole.
Another area of concern raised by some workers in the sector is the use of social media and apps such as TripAdvisor, some reviews can lead to added stress for workers. Bad reviews or even no reviews can lead to some workers experiencing their hours being reduced. The worker in this instance has little by way of right to reply to the complainant and must rely on management to step up when workers are wronged.
All these issues show how little respect is given to many workers in this sector without proper site inspections vital workers rights can be disregarded and ignored.
Tourism in a Post Pandemic Workplace
Workers returning to their jobs over the coming months must be satisfied that all health and safety measures are in place to keep them safe.
At a recent Covid-19 briefing on RTE, the Minister for Business, Heather Humphries, called for ‘every workplace to appoint one lead workers representative who will work with the employer to ensure Covid-19 measures are adhered to’, of course we would argue these ‘lead workers’ should be union members.
In the recently published research paper, commissioned by Unite and titled, Hope or Austerity, Dr Conor McCabe lays out clearly why we need to have confidence that measures are working as we reopen for business. ‘Guideline or ‘best practice’ procedures will not be enough. These protections must be on a legal footing and subject to workplace checks by trade unions. This is to ensure that our members are protected, and that employers adhere to the regulations’.
As the Hospitality & Tourism industry returns and rebuilds post pandemic, the public must be assured that conditions in the workplace are satisfactory for the workers, and that it is a safe place for them to visit.
Therefore, it is the workers themselves in this sector who need to become unionised. Strengthened by their collective power they will then be better positioned to protect themselves and the public too. The workplace that has a unionised lead worker can be an advocate on broader work issues, raise health & safety matters with management and be a voice for workers grievances.
This is the best way forward for workers in an industry that has disregarded its front-line staff for too long while the industry has taken billions into the Irish economy on the backs of the hard work done by skilled and dedicated employees.
Tourism & Hospitality have much in common, the Covid -19 pandemic has had, and it will continue to have, a massive impact on tourism not just in Ireland but globally too. It is the sector that took the biggest hit and will take time to recover, jobs created by this sector and the economic impact is undeniable. Let us hope that Ireland’s key sectors, and those who run, regulate, and profit from them are taking this time to reflect on a little bit more than the bottom line.
And let us hope that workers too are reflecting and realising some important lessons this pandemic has given us; that all workers have value and their contributions are necessary to keep the wheels of the economy running, that it is the front-line workers in all sectors who are the biggest asset any company or business has.
It is now time to reflect, recharge, rethink and unionise.
Unite member Micheál Kelliher explains how the Public Health Emergency has exposed some of the structural inequalities in access to information for Deaf people.
Since Irish Sign Language (ISL) was recognised as Ireland’s third official language in December 2017, it has been a long and difficult fight to get the Act fully implemented. I am Unite member and a spokesperson for a campaign called #StopHidingISL. We started this campaign when RTÉ refused to include ISL in their broadcast during the national anthem at the All Ireland GAA finals in Croke Park in 2018.
Micheál Kelliher ISL video explaining concerns of the Deaf community with access to public health information
The GAA were very good in including a Deaf person and an ISL interpreter to sign the national anthem at Croke Park on finals day so that the Deaf people at the game could be involved with their hearing friends and family members. However, RTÉ failed to feature this in their broadcast. This excluded the Deaf people at home and in pubs across Ireland from participating in their national anthem before the game began. RTÉ at that time said that it was technically impossible to include the ISL user on screen, in a bubble for example. However TG4, a significantly smaller station and the GAA managed to do just that without any issue.
In the same month, the Pope was visiting Ireland and was sharing a large, bright stage with the Taoiseach. The interpreter was off the stage, far away in a dark corner away from the cameras. It was somewhat ironic that the Pope was speaking about how society should be more equal, while my access was actively hidden from the screens?
The #StopHidingISL campaign has asked RTÉ about this situation, and their response was that they were filming for an international audience, and that ISL is ‘obsolete’. Wow! It’s a strange word to use. When someone is speaking Irish, does RTÉ tell this person their language is obsolete or edit them out? I’ve never seen this happen, but somehow it keeps happening with ISL! There are clear signs of discrimination and active exclusion of our language.
COVID-19 Health Warnings
When the global COVID-19 pandemic came to the forefront of news broadcasts in Ireland, the Deaf community was initially excluded from access to crucial information in their preferred language for more than a week. Without having access to critical information, we were vulnerable to misinformation and misinterpretation.
Some of you may be wondering why written English is not an adequate form of communication for Deaf people in these circumstances. Sign language is a visual language which like all languages develops organically and for some Deaf people, spoken and written English is like a foreign language. It’s critical that everyone has access to information in their first language so they won’t put themselves and everyone else at risk. Inclusion is not a luxury, it’s a necessity to protect society as a whole.
After a campaign involving the Irish Deaf Society, Chime, and the Deaf community, we got our first briefing with Irish Sign Language on the 5th of March with the HSE (or Department of Health) but it was still a disaster for us. The camera kept focusing in on the speakers and cutting the ISL interpreters out of the shot. The interpreters kept trying to walk into shot so they could be seen by viewers. It was clear that the media team needed some Deaf Awareness training. Slowly, we ISL is becoming more prominent in briefings, because of media teams becoming more aware, but it has been slow and difficult to make progress.
Despite the passing into law of the Irish Sign Language Recognition ACT there is still no consistency across government and state institutions. When we achieve access to information in our language with one agency, we have to do it all over again with other agencies, departments, media companies and staff. In recent weeks we have observed briefings and announcements by the Ministers for Health, Education, Finance, and the department of An Taoiseach without Irish Sign Language interpreters.
Another situation which is of great concern to our community is the education and inclusion of Deaf children. RTÉ launched a valuable initiative called the Home School Hub, to help with home schooling that children all over the country are facing. However, RTÉ yet again failed to include Deaf children who are ISL users.
For the first week or so, out of concern for the children Deaf teachers and special needs assistants stepped in and volunteered their time to translate the content into ISL. The Deaf community and its organisations again mobilised to campaign to get ISL included in the Home School Hub.
The approach to sharing information in ISL is not consistent across platforms either. For example, there are regular videos with ISL on RTÉ’s social media pages coming from the HSE’s daily briefings. But when the Taoiseach made an announcement about restrictions on the 1st of May, there were no videos with ISL on their social media pages, leading to confusion and stress when trying to access the new information. The ISL videos were only on the RTE News Now TV channel, and RTÉ Player. Each Deaf person has their own preferences on where they get news, e.g. TV channels, newspapers, websites, social media. And besides, not everyone has TV or the Internet. Access to information in Irish Sign Language should be on all media platforms.
Deaf communities around the world are experiencing similar barriers. British Sign Language users and the #WhereIsTheInterpreter campaign have started a class action legal case against the UK government. The World Federation of the Deaf and World Association of Sign Language Interpreters has made a joint statement “reminding governments on all levels of their commitments under the Convention on the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities (CRPD) to ensure full access to information and accessibility to all services under CRPD Articles 9 and 21.” The Irish government ratified the CRPD, but they, their agencies, departments and public owned companies consistently fail to follow the convention.
Moving forward, I hope that seeing ISL interpreters on screens will be normalised and not only during exceptional events. Interpreters are signs of an inclusive society and can inspire some people to learn ISL, and to let Deaf people play a bigger part in our inclusive society.
Here is a list of demands that I, and members of the Deaf community, would like to see all media companies, agencies and departments follow:
When interpreters are at televised events, they must be beside speakers and on camera, no matter if the audience is national or international.
Media teams should receive Deaf Awareness training and always keep access and inclusivity in their minds.
Full time and well paid staff who are fluent in ISL at RTÉ to always be ready for exceptional announcements or sudden changes (e.g. red warning weathers, COVID-19), in a timely manner (information translates immediately, not a few days later).
Consistent access to Irish Sign Language and subtitles across all media platforms, from TV channels (including the main one) and websites to social media.
Provide full access to ISL and subtitles for important events in our society like political debates.
Roles such as policy officers with a focus on access to ISL across all departments, agencies and media.
The demands above are so simple, and some of them don’t cost anything. We are aware that there won’t be any ‘getting back to normal’ after the COVID-19 pandemic. RTÉ shouldn’t get ‘back to normal’, actively excluding ISL from screens. The government departments and agencies shouldn’t get ‘back to normal’, forgetting about the Deaf community’s needs. The media companies shouldn’t get ‘back to normal’, having inconsistent approach on sharing information in ISL on all of their media platforms. I’m hopeful that we will keep going forward, not backwards.
“Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance” – Verna Myers
“Washinghands doesn’t contribute to profits, so it’s not a priority for bosses”.
Most Easter weekends see us visiting pubs and restaurants to meet up with friends. This weekend is very different, with hospitality outlets closed as a result of Covid-19. As we sit at home, have a read of this post by Unite Hospitality Coordinator Julia Marciniak who lifts the lid on the conditions faced by many hospitality workers – and highlights what needs to be done to ensure that hospitality workplaces are safer places for staff and customers when they do re-open.
The picture at the top of this post was drawn by the young son of an activist and captures previous protests outside Dublin’s Ivy restaurant.
Introduction
Julia Marciniak: This week Adrian Cummins, CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, called on the Government to set out clear plans for lifting restrictions so that businesses can re-open.
Obviously restrictions will eventually be lifted, but when that happens a focus needs to be put on employers’ responsibilities to put in place new measures that ensure the health and safety of workers and the general public. Those measures need to include adequate washing facilities, break times, and a transparent method of workplace inspections.
Brendan Ogle on why we should be able to access the state pension at 65 like our hypocritical politicians do.
‘OH NO WE DIDN’T’ – ‘ OH YES YOU BLOODY WELL DID!’
Last Tuesday (21/1/20) Unite’s Irish Executive Council passed a motion committing us to campaigning to restore the state pension age to 65 in the Republic of Ireland. This was on foot of a motion brought forward from the Waterford Community Branch. Yesterday (23/1/20) I attended a News Conference for the ‘STOP67’ campaign, supported by ICTU, that seeks to prevent the enactment of the legislative provision that would see the current pension age of 66 rise further to 67 in January next year. The background to this issue, which has suddenly become an election issue, is extraordinary and exemplifies both the hypocrisy in Irish politics and the failure of the Irish media to effectively call that hypocrisy out.
When we all retire is of course linked to when we can draw down our state pension, or as I like to consider it my saved wages paid in retirement, that we accumulate and provide for over a lifetime of work. In 2010 Fianna Fail and the Greens in Government did a deal with the ‘Troika’ that required us to increase our state pension age which was then 65. Remember the parties, Fianna Fail and the Greens.
Labour campaigned in the 2011 General Election against those changes, and much else (ssshhhh, don’t mention water charges)! When it was pointed out that this was part of the Troika bailout Labour were bullish – or was it another word beginning with ‘bull’ – in their ‘Frankfurt’s way or Labour’s way’ response. Post-election however they couldn’t wait to run out to the RDS and feign anguish at a special conference before leaping in to coalition to prop up their latest of many right wing Governments. Once in office of course it was quickly ‘Frankfurt’s way’ and then Minister Joan Burton quickly put the boot into those about to retire. As early as 15 June 2011 Burton was in the Dail espousing the:
‘fundamental principle that people need to participate in the workforce for longer and they need to contribute more towards their pensions if they are to achieve the income they expect or would like to have in retirement’.
Wow.
The 2011 election was in March, Labour campaigned against the increase in the pension age, but by June just three months later not only had they smashed one of many, many election pledges but they had made the smashing of it a ‘fundamental principle’. Despite the lies in the run up to the election, once in Government a Labour Minister who later went on to be the party leader and Tanaiste, and the current leader Brendan Howlin in no less influential an office than the Department of Public Expenditure, made making our retirement ages go up to 68 by 2028 a ‘fundamental principle’.
But wait. That is unless of course you were one of them. Because guess what? The changes don’t apply to Politicians! They are still allowed to get the state pension at age 65. In fact perhaps a related news story here is that we now have actual, factual and legislative proof of something many of us have long suspected, that based on Joan Burton’s own words it is clear that ‘fundamental principles’ don’t apply to Politicians.
What utter hypocrisy.
Fine Gael of course were, and are, delighted. Listen to Regina O’Doherty justifying this abuse of working people in the run up to the election. At the time Enda Kenny as Taoiseach was happy to give glib answers to a rightly irate opposition while the Labour Party went around doing his dirty work for him. If that lot stay in Government look forward to ever increasing retirement ages and lower net pensions in perpetuity.
So fast forward to this 2020 election campaign. Labour, the Greens and Fianna Fail who all did this haven’t been in Government for a while and they all want back there. They are looking for a way to get votes. SIPTU’S Michael Taft yesterday described, correctly, these pension changes as ‘a cynical move on low paid people that was highly regressive and socially damaging’.
These parties know this now. But what is worse is they knew it then too. They knew it when they did it, and they did it anyway. Because they don’t care what is regressive. They don’t care what is socially damaging. All they really care about is that they get elected, and they are even prepared to use campaigns against their own policies, their own decisions in Government, to get back into Government. So they can do it to us again. Why are they not being loudly called out on all of this in the media? Even at the Press Conference yesterday nobody dared say ‘Labour did this’. The Leader of Fianna Fail who sat at the cabinet table and put these changes on the agenda, with Green Party leader Eamon Ryan there too as a fellow Minister, are now cynically campaigning against the issue they created. There was an elephant in that room yesterday bigger than any elephant in the Phoenix Park. The entire media was represented there. And nobody said it. Nobody called it out.
I want to lend my support to the ‘STOP67’ Campaign, for what it’s worth. Well done SIPTU, ICTU, the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Age Action Ireland and Active Retirement Ireland. Let’s #STOP67. And then lets #STOP66. And then lets #RESTORE65.
And while we are at it what about if, for and once and for all, we stop being silent and failing to call out the insincerity, the hypocrisy, the theatrics and the pantomime politics. Surely as a country we are better than this.
The General Election is already effectively underway and it looks like it will be formally announced in the coming days. It’s already being pitched by the media as a presidential style election whose main purpose will be to decide if Leo Varadkar or Michael Martin will be Taoiseach. To those suffering in this country – whichever of those two sits in the Taoiseach’s office will make absolutely no difference – Unite’s Brendan Ogle explains why.
We are told constantly now that the General Election is already effectively underway and it looks like it will be formally announced in the coming days. It’s already being pitched by the media as a presidential style election whose main purpose will be to decide if Leo Varadkar or Michael Martin will be Taoiseach. Here’s the news, to those suffering in this country – whichever of those two sits in the Taoiseach’s office will make absolutely no difference – and here’s why.
Housing crisis has become an emergency.
Michael Martin was an integral and supplicant part of successive Bertie Ahern/Fianna Fáil led Governments which wrecked this country in order to facilitate their builder and banker buddies. He sat in high office at every single cabinet meeting and voted for every ‘light touch regulation’ measure, measures that caused or created:
– the financial crash
– a loss of economic sovereignty
– the public bailout of a rotten private banking system
– a troika bailout of the country that has cost this and future generations tens of billions of Euro (€65billion)
– mass emigration of over 300,000 of our young people and families
– a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle, to the rich and reckless
These measures led directly to a tragic suicide epidemic and indirectly to an historically tragic housing emergency. Michael Martin and the decisions he silently took at the cabinet table resulted in the loss of life, light and hope and has blighted the futures of our youngest.
Patients on trolleys is at an all time high.
Leo Varadkar has been Taoiseach less than three years but he has been a Minister and senior cabinet member since 2011. In that time he has voted to:
– impose austerity on the country to push the sins of the rich onto the shoulders of the rest
– make sure the richest in our society currently carry the lowest tax burden they have had to carry in decades
– he has tried, and failed, to commodify and privatise our water
– he has turned a homelessness crisis into a housing emergency simply to enrich the property and landlord class his party exists to represent
– he is the Taoiseach of tax haven Ireland, suing the EU to try to let the richest corporation in the world keep €13billion it has been found to owe in taxes
– this week our health system plumbed new depths and the number of patients on trolleys hit a new high, all presided over by this former Minister for Health and Doctor!
And what was the Taoiseach doing this week while this was happening?
He was trying to find a way to commemorate crown forces who 100 years ago fought might and main to stop the very state itself from being created.
Of course for many who are secure in their homes, their jobs, their pensions, their savings or otherwise, things have improved from the abyss of ten years ago. The banks we the people bailed out are lending again, even evicting some of those who bailed them out, or selling their homes to vulture funds.
In addition ‘leprechaun economics’ allows massive growth levels to be claimed. Our tax haven status allows it to look like the books are a bit better. Precarious work, and labour and human rights abuses in sectors like hospitality (and others), make it look like there are lots of jobs, and if you are prepared to work for near nothing in one of the most expensive cities in the world that may even be the case.
Yet for many there is no home they can realistically afford, no job they are secure in, no pay that is enough, no pension they can plan for, no single tier health system they can fall back on when sick, no house or family or future they can save for and look forward to.
We live in a country where those of us who simply want homes for our people, who want fair and just taxation, who want a living wage for all and a health system that is the same for poor people as it is for rich people are presented by the media as extremists. And yet those who have caused economic and near social breakdown, who have bailed out the reckless, and who have caused death, despair and hopelessness are unquestioningly allowed to present themselves as ‘holding the centre’.
Whether Leo Varadkar or Michael Martin is Taoiseach this country is run for the few, on the backs of the many.
Guess what, Irish people who vote – and especially those who don’t bother at all – allow them to do this? Are we going to allow our votes be used for it to stay like that forever?
Brendan Ogle’s latest blog on the UK General Election “in an era of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump, in a world which has swung inexorably to the right and where greed is now considered not only good but great, finding a person with human traits of empathy, social justice, equality and dignity and putting them into high office would dramatically buck recent trends.”
The question keeps popping up within media circles, in various forms – ‘why is Jeremy Corbyn so unpopular?’
I could make an argument that the presumption in the question is unsound. After all the British Labour Party has had its greatest level of membership ever during Corbyn’s leadership, at times his meetings have taken on the size and sound of mass rallies, and young people in particular seem inspired by this aged Marxist in a way which is extraordinary to see. Yet it is certainly the case that all this is happening against a constant background of vicious and dishonest attack, blatant media bias, and personal vilification so intense and sustained that even some people that I would have thought would have had more sense on the left here in Ireland have descended to ‘Corbyn bashing’.
Then of course we have the liberal commentariat. In Britain they are called ‘Blairites’, or ‘Red Tory’s’ to give them a more incisive name. To understand them remember that Margaret Thatcher herself, when asked once what her greatest achievement was, answered ‘Tony Blair’. They are those who have effectively given up on a radical reform of society, of a re-distribution of wealth downwards from rich to poor, of just taxation and of improved and increased public services, and instead believe that the best the working class can achieve is a compromise with neoliberal greed and inequality. They use the words ‘compromise’ a lot as if neoliberals are into compromise. They talk about ‘holding the centre’ as if the centre hasn’t already moved to the extreme right, and they measure public opinion by what people text into TV and radio shows on the ideological sect that passes for media these days. Oh, and they carry a White flag, ready to wave to their masters whenever challenged.
Faced with such times and circumstances a win for a Corbyn led Labour in today’s UK general election would be extraordinary. But to me, who has taken some stick in my time myself, the most extraordinary thing is this – that Jeremy Corbyn is still standing after everything that has been thrown at him and is in with a fighting chance on denying Johnson’s toxic dishonest, selfish and greedy agenda a majority Government (or even better)! I take my hat off to the man.
Jeremy Corbyn has never voted for, let alone started, a war. He has never made a person homeless. He has never closed a public service. He leads a humble, some would say frugal, life. Unlike his opponent he is not a liar, he doesn’t threaten people, he doesn’t hide from robust and difficult debate and he doesn’t try to manipulate tragedy and murder victims for political gain as Boris Johnson did recently. He is a decent, humble and deeply compassionate human being. Any country should feel privileged to have the potential to be led by such a man in a Profession littered with liars, crooks, narcissists, sociopaths and even psychopaths.
But Corbyn does something very rare in politics today. He speaks truth to power, and he promises reform. Here’s a wee secret, power doesn’t much appreciate the truth, and the rich and powerful certainly don’t want reform and change. They are doing very well thank you very much, and the media outlets that they own and control know it. Corbyn threatens their hegemony, so much so that they would prefer an uncouth buffoon and renowned liar in power that will do their bidding, that they can put in their pocket like a possession.
I am not going to dignify the disgusting slurs peddled as fact about Corbyn and anti-semitism. Just remember this though while you are looking and failing to find any race of religion that Corbyn has ever attacked, this man of principle would be the first every British Prime Minister to have a pro-Palestine position and has promised to stop selling arms to Israel – arms that they use for their ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. In a world where Zionists consider standing with the oppressed children of Palestine enough to damn you as anti-semitic, it’s not hard to see why the powerful ‘Israel Lobby’ so dread Prime Minister Corbyn. Shame on them.
As I write this, polls are narrowing, but probably not quickly enough. A Labour/SNP coalition is still possible, highly desirable, but maybe unlikely. Is there a Labour surge that the unreliable polls are missing? We’ll know soon enough.
But I am certain of this – in an era of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump, in a world which has swung inexorably to the right and where greed is now is considered not only good but great, finding a person with human traits of empathy, social justice, equality and dignity and putting them into high office would dramatically buck recent trends.
It would be an immensely positive turn, a necessary change #ForTheManyNotTheFew, a precious moment of fight back for decency.
New Blog by Brendan Ogle.
This week we had an emergency debate on a vote of no confidence in the Minister responsible for that emergency, Eoghan Murphy. Just days before we had four by-elections where barely one quarter of the electorate bothered turning up, so four new TD’S took part in the debate. I watched Tuesday’s debate live. Amid all the theatrics and finger pointing this much was clear: the Government believe the free market is the only way to provide housing, even on public land.
IN THIS REGARD IT IS OUR GOVERNMENT WHO ARE ‘EXTREMISTS’
Did you know that 5% of renters pay 75% of their total income to their landlord? This is one, just one, of an extraordinary array of statistics linked to our housing and homeless emergency.
This week we had an emergency debate on a vote of no confidence in the Minister responsible for that emergency, Eoghan Murphy. Just days before we had four by-elections where barely one quarter of the electorate bothered turning up, so four new TD’S took part in the debate. I watched Tuesday’s debate live. Amid all the theatrics and finger pointing this much was clear: the Government believe the free market is the only way to provide housing, even on public land. They are wedded to that ideology, see nothing at all wrong with it, and even think it’s ‘caring’. The Government’s definition of ‘caring’ is best encapsulated by Minister Regina O’Doherty who thinks it is ‘caring’ to refuse to award a 10c increase (yes 10 cents, it’s not a misprint) to our lowest minimum wages workers in a city where apartments costing €300,000 are described by Government as ‘affordable’.
That position is not caring. Rather it is an extremist position lacking in compassion or compromise.
I have just come from the launch of the ‘Jesuit Centre for Faith & Justice (JCFJ)’ strategic plan for 2019-2023. I am not a religious person but I like to think I am a compassionate one, and the Jesuit’s do fantastic work here in the areas of social justice and inequality. They are not extremists. They are realists in social and economic terms. Their plan focuses in on the three key areas of Housing, Climate Action and Penal Reform and their champion is Fr. Peter McVerry. In his address earlier he made reference to the report being a ‘critique without fear of losing Government funding because we don’t get any.’ This was more than just a quip, and everybody present knew it.
Yesterday the Chief Executive of the ‘Peter McVerry Trust’, which does rely on substantial Government funding, made what I still consider to be ill-advised comments about the political debate the previous night, basically saying that changing the Housing Minister would have been pointless. When Apollo House was order to be closed by the High Court in January 2017 the same Trust, and Dublin City Council too, swore affidavits in Court that there were enough beds in Dublin City then for all homeless people. Those oaths looked ridiculous then, and they look even more ridiculous now. They were simply untrue. But what sort of extremist Government requires such unquestioning compliance from emergency service providers like these in order to ensure the provision of essential funding streams for our most vulnerable?
Of course citizens shouldn’t require ‘charity’ or emergency services for a roof over their heads. That notion in itself is the manifestation of Fine Gaels’ extreme political ideology. Basic decency, fairness and the concept of ‘society’ should be enough. One of this morning’s speakers was JCFJ’S Kevin Hargaden who noted that ‘it has been decades since the wealthy have carried such a light load’ and that it was as a result of this fact that ‘social services have been devastated’.
Kevin also pointed out what should be obvious but is often lost in the cascade of extremist and divisive Government policies, and the clamour of their apologists in the ideological sect that is Irish media – ‘poverty is not a natural disaster’. Indeed it is not. Everything we see on our streets now, that we witness every day, is the result of a political choice. We are a rich country, a very rich country. Yet our streets are strewn with human suffering, degradation and economic isolation. It’s brutal in its contempt for ordinary people.
I learned this morning too that 75% of the occupants of our prisons are suffering from addiction, and of course there are only a small number of assistance programmes available. Where they exist they only do so to save Government blushes, as opposed to any sincere effort to stop the anesthesia of those who our Government are content to abandon to the fringes of ‘recovery Ireland’.
EXTREMISM
We now live in a country where those who believe a roof over their heads is a human right and social need, where those who want a living wage, who seek tax justice, who expect a health service that provides services based on need as opposed to wealth are treated as the ‘extremists’. And yet a Government that is presiding over the worst housing emergency since the famine, that allows employment abuses that are so bad some go back to the days of slavery (I have the records and real life testimonies in my office) and which is wilfully stealing our children’s youth and hopes for basic needs to be met in the future claim to be, and are allowed get away with describing themselves as ‘holding the centre’.
No.
They are not. They are the extremists. They and their bullying, arrogant greed, their selfish pandering to their rich paymasters, their recklessness with our taxes and their non-collection of much more, their sociopathy which is now bordering on psychopathy, and their careless delusion of compassion. The carnage which is now the lived experience of far too many is a result of Government extremism. But enough from me. Peter McVerry, in the best letter I have ever seen printed in The Irish Times, sums up the extremism best:
‘Sir, – I attended court with a young homeless boy who had been charged with theft of a bottle of orange, value $1.
Another homeless man was charged with theft of four bars of chocolate, value €3.
Another homeless man was charged with theft of tow packets of Silk Cut cigarettes.
A TD, on his way to, or from, his full-time, very well paid job in Brussels, stops by at Dail Eireann to sign in, so that he can collect his full €51,600 expenses for his attendance in the Dail. – Yours, etc.
Brendan Ogle: On Saturday, I was to speak at the 35th Anniversary of a stellar event when we Irish stood up against racism. It was when eleven young Dunnes Stores workers in Dublin refused to handle South African goods to highlight the then system of apartheid in that country. They ended up being on strike for two years and nine months, gaining both national and international attention for this great cause. Nelson Mandela praised the workers for their actions stating that their action, in far-away Ireland, kept him going through many of his difficult days in prison. The workers won their strike, eventually forcing the Irish government to ban all South African produce from entering Ireland. What an achievement it was.
As I considered these events on Thursday a debate was taking place on RTE radio’s ‘Liveline’ about race. Some of those taking part were at pains to describe it as being about something else – direct provision – but it was about race alright. We were told that the Government wanted to move twelve (that’s 12, not 12,000) asylum seekers or refugees to Achill, temporarily, and the island had awakened from its autumnal slumber. There was ‘a vigil’ at 2:30 in the afternoon. We Irish love our vigils. The candles at this one would want to be made of good stuff though, because the point of this vigil was ‘to get information’ about the plans to house the twelve needy people. We were told that there were ‘no amenities’ by a few of the people who live there, presumably with amenities. Some also made the point that in the original proposal that among the twelve there would be ‘too many men’, but nobody made the case for what particular bit of ‘men’ might be an issue.
Next Friday, 20th September, young people across the globe will march down the streets of their cities and towns singing, chanting, carrying banners and placards to demonstrate against impeding climate chaos and the lack of political action to avoid or avert the grave risks we are all facing. This is not hyperbole, it is simply the facts, the scientific consensus. We are destroying the planet and the half-hearted measures proffered by political entities are wholly inadequate to deal with this crisis.
Climate chaos poses great risks to our planet, to food crops, to water quality and to human health. Rising sea levels will have an adverse effect on migration; it is estimated that 10% of the world’s population will be climate refugees by 2050. By 2048 there will be no fish left in our oceans. Young people face an uncertain future and the toll on human life will be considerable if action is not taken, and taken immediately. This is an emergency of unprecedented proportions.
A report published this week described preparations for climate crisis as “gravely insufficient”. One of the main obstacles is a lack of political will to implement the radical changes that are needed.
Ireland has consistently failed to reduce carbon emissions and is likely to face billions of euro in fines from the EU as it fails to meet both its 2020 and 2030 targets. The governmental response to this crisis has been weak and without vision. Government Ministers have been blatantly two faced on the issue, claiming on the one hand that climate action is a priority and even posing for photographs with young climate activists, while on the other hand continuing to issue offshore exploration licenses and preventing the passage of the Climate Emergency Bill.
Government will acknowledge that the planet is in grave danger because of human industry and out of control consumption yet they continue to push the very policies that are causing that damage; like increasing the national herd and handing out licenses for oil exploration. This is hugely irresponsible.
The over reliance on carbon tax as a solution is unsound as a policy. Ring-fencing money to implement good policies is necessary but that is only one relatively small step out of numerous steps that are needed. As it stands a carbon tax implemented by Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil will only serve to push the costs on to consumers and ordinary people. And those political parties will do very little to tackle the biggest polluters. Just 100 companies are responsible for over 70% of the greenhouse gas emissions on the planet and nothing is being done to curtail their behaviour.
The need for radical and visionary policies is now. Our society has to consider huge changes in how it produces, consumes and embraces transition. That starts with the need to stop measuring our society in the narrow parameters of economic growth, profit making and GDP. The pursuit of economic growth has led to a high level of inequality whereby Ireland, as one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, lags way behind its neighbours in terms of public services. We currently have over 750,000 people at risk of poverty and the highest level of homelessness than at any other time in the state’s history.
Taking new and brave decisions is the only way we will be able to stop climate chaos. For example Ireland should be moving forward to introduce free public transport as other countries and cities in Europe are now doing. The fact that the minister for Transport has ruled out this move is an indication of why Ireland is currently the EU’s worst performer on climate action. They have failed to take this seriously.
Unite the Union commends the lead given by international school students and urges those members to come out and support the September 20 ‘climate strike’. There are events taking place across the country and details of actions taking place near you can be found on the Global Strike Action website.
Climate change is the biggest challenge to our generation, and is a trade union issue and a class issue; it is riven with inequality and will leave no part of the economy untouched.
The greatest strength we have is solidarity and organisation, the Trade Union movement has to be a vehicle for the struggle against climate change.
‘OH NO WE DIDN’T’ – ‘ OH YES YOU BLOODY WELL DID!’
Brendan Ogle: On Saturday, I was to speak at the 35th Anniversary of a stellar event when we Irish stood up against racism. It was when eleven young Dunnes Stores workers in Dublin refused to handle South African goods to highlight the then system of apartheid in that country. They ended up being on strike for two years and nine months, gaining both national and international attention for this great cause. Nelson Mandela praised the workers for their actions stating that their action, in far-away Ireland, kept him going through many of his difficult days in prison. The workers won their strike, eventually forcing the Irish government to ban all South African produce from entering Ireland. What an achievement it was.
Unite for a Real Alternative 