Release Maura Harrington & Niall Harnett

30/07/09

éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson has called for the immediate release of Maura Harrington and Niall Harnett and urged people to attend a demonstration at Mountjoy jail, Dublin tonight.

The two Shell to Sea activists were each sentenced to four months in prison today [Thursday] for their roles in the ongoing peaceful opposition to Shell Oil's project in the Erris area of Mayo.

In response, the Shell to Sea campaign has called a protest at the gates of Mountjoy jail for 6pm this evening, the time Harrington is expected to arrive to commence her incarceration.

Leeson said: "The sentences that Maura Harrington and Niall Harnett today received are part of an ongoing attempt by the Twenty-Six County state to intimidate the Shell the Sea campaign and the residents of north-west Mayo. These attempts will ultimately prove futile."

"Maura and Niall are not guilty of any crime. What they are guilty of is standing up for the safety of the Erris community and demanding that the natural resources of Ireland be used for the benefit of the Irish people. Unfortunately, in today's Ireland this has become a punishable offence."

"Earlier this month, the Dublin government released a report which recommended sweeping cuts in public services and social care. Today, the same government jailed two people for daring to make the reasonable point that the natural gas off the west coast could be exploited to fund the public purse. Clearly, Fianna Fáil cares more about Shell Oil than it does about Irish citizens."

Brian continued: "The jailing of Shell to Sea activists and the persecution of the campaign and the Erris community by the state and Shell is wrong and should stop immediately."

“éirígí is encouraging as many people as possible to gather outside Mountjoy jail at 6pm today to demand the immediate release of Maura Harrington and Niall Harnett. As long as they remain incarcerated, they will be a symbol of the Twenty-Six County government’s warped priorities.”

Opposition to Lisbon 2 Underway
30/07/09

Opposition to the re-running of the Lisbon Treaty got underway in Dublin yesterday [Wednesday].

In a coordinated action, éirígí activists hung banners in several prominent locations across Dublin city and county. Banners reading Same Treaty, Same Answer and Vote No to Lisbon 2 were dropped in Drimnagh, Quarryvale, Palmerston and Tallaght to highlight the undemocratic nature of the Twenty-Six County government’s decision to re-run a treaty that was rejected at the polls last year.

In June 2008, the Lisbon Treaty was defeated in the Twenty-Six Counties by a margin of 53.4 to 46.6 per cent. However, within minutes of the announcement of the result, the establishment in Ireland and abroad was calling for a re-run.

In the intervening period, the Dublin government has made a poor attempt to prove that it has listened to the concerns of the population. Brain Cowen and Twenty-Six County foreign minister Micheál Martin scurried off to Brussels to secure supposedly legally-binding changes to the Lisbon Treaty, in a desperate attempt to con the electorate in to believing that the Treaty had somehow been significantly altered. The reality is that not a single word, comma or full stop has been changed in the Treaty and people are being forced to vote again on the same document.

After the banner drop, éirígí spokesperson Daithí Mac An Mhaistír said: “Wednesday’s action is the first by éirígí in what will be a vigorous campaign against the mark two Lisbon referendum. éirígí intends to play an active role in the progressive No campaign and is confident that the argument can be won for a second time.

“All of the reasons why éirígí and the Campaign Against the European Union Constitution opposed the Lisbon Treaty during the first campaign remain ensconced within the document. The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty would ensure the further erosion of workers’ rights, sovereignty and democracy.

“The fact that the exact same Treaty is being placed before the electorate in the Twenty-Six Counties for a second time proves the point that democracy and sovereignty are anathema to the European Union’s empire-building project.”

Daithí concluded: “Last year’s defeat of the Lisbon Treaty in the Twenty-Six Counties sent shock waves through the right-wing establishment across Europe, a second rejection would give them even more food for thought.”

Stiallann Lenihan Daoine ar Phá Íseal

27/07/09
(English version follows.)

Tá moladh Aire Airgeadais Átha Cliath Brian Lenihan gur chóir an pá íosta sna Sé Chondae Fichead a ghearradh cáinte ag cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson.
Rinne Lenihan an moladh le linn díospóireachta ag Scoil Samhraidh Mhic a’ Ghoill le déanaí sna Gleannta, condae Dhún na nGall. Sárthaispeánann an Scoil Samhraidh cuid de na smaointí is coiméadaí in Éirinn agus san Eoraip ar bhonn bliantúil. I mbliana, i measc an lucht freastail bhí Dermot Gleeson, cathaoirleach Bhainc-Aontas Éireann; iarcheannaire Fhine Gael agus stiúrthóir láithreach Bhainc-Aontas Éireann, Alan Dukes; agus Colm McCarthy, ollamh urchóideach an Bhoird Snip Nua.

Mar chúis imní, ag féachaint ar mhianach iad siúd páirteach sna díospóireachtaí, an téama a bhí ag Scoil Samhraidh na bliana seo ná ‘The Irish Economoy – What Went Wrong? How Will We Fix It?’

Le linn a léachta sna Gleannta, thug TD Fhianna Fáil Lenihan le tuiscint go gcaithfí tabhairt faoin phá íosta. Is é €8.56 [£7.40] san uair an t-íosráta pá sna Sé Chondae Fichead faoi láthair. Dóibh siúd i bhfostaíocht lán-aimseartha ag saothrú an phá íosta, is ionann an ráta seo agus €337 [£291] pá comhlán sa tseachtain.

Ag ceisniú loighic shaobh Lenihan agus a chomhghuallaithe sa rialtas, d’fhriafraigh Brian Leeson: “An bhfuil an t-aire ag moladh i ndáiríre go ngearrfaí tuarastal na n-oibrithe is lú pá sa stát chun íoc as fiacha cearrbhachais na n-ilmhilliúnaithe ar nós Seán Fitzpatrick, Seán Dunne agus Bernard McNamara?

“I ndiaidh fhoilsiú Tuairisc Mhic Chárthaigh agus a mholadh an tseirbhís phoiblí a dheachú, tugann an moladh is déanaí ó Brian Lenihan a thuilleadh fianaise ar cheangal daingean Fhianna Fáil do pholaitíocht loicthe an nua-liobrálachais.

“Oibrithe ar phá íseal, páistí scoile, na heasláin agus pinsinéirí ata thíos leis agus Fianna Fáil fós ag tairiscint baoi tarrthála dá gcairde bhaincéirí agus fhorbróirí. Níor chuala muid ag aon phointe moladh ón Roinn Airgeadais faoi theorainn a chur le tuarastal na ndaoine is mó pá san eacnamaíocht, faoi cháin ar bhrabúis agus ar na saibhir a ardú, faoi scéim oibreacha poiblí nó faoi náisiúnú ár n-acmhainní nádúrtha. Ina n-áit, bhí sruth seasta ann de mholtaí a fhéachann le hionsaí a dhéanamh ar na daoine is leochailí sa sochaí.”

Lean Leeson: “Cad chuige a bhfuil ionsaí a dhéanamh ar an lucht oibre agus orthu siúd is mó san angar fad is atá baincéirí agus forbróirí ag baint sochair as na billiúin euro d’airgead na gcáiníocóirí? Luíonn an freagra san fhírinne go bhfuil nasc dofhuascailte idir Fianna Fáil agus an aicme gnó sna Sé Chondae Fichead: dhá thaobh an bhoinn chéanna ata iontu go simplí.”

“Theip go mórthaibhseach ar eacnamaíocht agus ar pholaitíocht an nua-liobrálachais agus, dá bhrí, tá stát na Sé Chondae Fichead anois ag tabhairt aghaidh ar an ghéarchéim eacnamúil is measa le glúnta. Ach tá Fianna Fáil fós ag leanúint go huiríseal an teagaics nua-liobrálaigh a scrioss na céadta pobal lucht oibre.

“Ní féidir na polasaithe is cúis leis an ghéarchéim láithreach sa chaipitleachas a thairiscint mar an fhreagra. Le seachtain anuas, tá cailliúint 700 post fógraithe i ndá chomhlacht, Intel agus Element Six. Caithfidh oibrithe moltaí a chluinstin a chosnaíonn postanna, ní cinn a bhaineann faoina bpá agus gcionníollacha. Ba chóir nach nglacfar le gearranna don phá íosta.”


Lenihan Lashes Out at the Low Paid

The suggestion by Dublin minister of finance Brian Lenihan that the minimum wage in the Twenty-Six Counties should be cut has been slammed by éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson.
Lenihan made the proposal during a debate at the recent McGill Summer School in Glenties, County Donegal. The Summer School showcases some of the most conservative thought in Ireland and Europe on an annual basis. This year, attendees at the week-long event, included Dermot Gleeson, chairperson of the Allied Irish Bank; the former head of Fine Gael and current director of Anglo Irish Banks Alan Dukes; and Colm McCarthy, the now notorious don of An Bord Snip Nua.

Worryingly, considering the calibre of those contributing to the debates, the theme of this year’s Summer School was The Irish Economy – What Went Wrong? How Will We Fix It?
In the course of his address in Glenties, Fianna Fáil TD Lenihan suggested that the “minimum wage would have to be addressed”. The minimum wage rate in the Twenty-Six Counties is currently €8.56 [£7.40] per hour. For those in full time employment earning the minimum wage, this rate equates to €337 [£291] gross pay per week.

Questioning the perverted logic of Lenihan and his colleagues in government, Brian Leeson asked: “Is the minister seriously suggesting that the wages of the lowest paid workers in the state be cut in order to pay for the gambling debts of multi-millionaires such as Seán Fitzpatrick, Seán Dunne and Bernard McNamara?

“Following the publication of the McCarthy Report and its proposals to decimate the public service, the latest suggestion from Brian Lenihan provides further evidence of Fianna Fáil’s firm attachment to the failed politics of neo-liberalism.

“Low paid workers, school children, the sick and pensioners are being made to suffer as Fianna Fáil continues to offer a buoy to their banker and developer friends. At no point have we heard suggestions emanating from the Department of Finance about capping the wages of the highest paid in the economy, increasing taxes on profits and on the rich, a public works scheme or the nationalising of our natural resources. Rather, there has been a steady stream of proposals that seek to attack the most vulnerable in society.”

Leeson continued: “Why are working class people and those most in need of public services being attacked while bankers and developers benefit from billions of euros of tax payers’ money? The answer lies in the fact that Fianna Fáil and the business class in the Twenty-Six County state are inextricably linked: they are simply two sides of the same coin.

“The economics and politics of neo-liberalism have failed spectacularly and, as a result, the Twenty-Six County state now faces its worst economic crisis in generations. Yet Fianna Fáil continues to slavishly follow the neo-liberal doctrine that has devastated hundreds of working class communities.

“The very policies that caused the current crisis in capitalism cannot now be offered up as the solution. In the last week, there have been announcements of almost 700 jobs losses in two companies, Intel and Element Six. Workers need to hear proposals that protect jobs, not ones that further undermine their pay and conditions. Cuts to the minimum wage should not be tolerated.”

Enniskillen & Dublin protests re 28-Day Detentions and Plastic Bullets

The use of 28-day detention legislation and the firing of lethal plastic bullets by the PSNI are proof positive of the British government's willingness to use repression to maintain its occupation of the Six Counties. éirígí will be protesting against both of these dangerous measures in Dublin and Fermanagh on August 8. Click here for more.

Leas Cross – More Evidence of an Immoral System
Saturday, July 25, 2009

“The Irish Republic fully realises the necessity of abolishing the present odious, degrading and foreign Poor Law System, substituting therefor a sympathetic native scheme for the care of the Nation's aged and infirm, who shall not be regarded as a burden, but rather entitled to the Nation's gratitude and consideration.” – Democratic Programme of the First Dáil, 1919

While not on the same scale or of the same type as that of the shocking treatment of children recounted in the recent Ryan report, the neglect of older people cited in the report into abuse and neglect at the Leas Cross nursing home makes for difficult and disturbing reading.

The litany of ill-treatment highlighted in both reports stands as a shocking indictment of a system that condemned tens upon tens of thousands of young and old alike to a life characterised by abuse and neglect instead of the love, care and appreciation they should have been treated with.

The ill treatment of older people in the privately-run nursing home in Swords, County Dublin first surfaced in 2005 after an RTÉ Prime Time undercover investigation into allegations of neglect of residents. It was shut down in August of that year after investigations showed the level of care provided in the nursing home to be sub-standard.

It subsequently emerged that there were 105 deaths at the nursing home during the period 2002-2004, a figure well above the average death rate for a similarly sized nursing home. A report by professor Des O’Neill described what happened in Leas Cross as the “systematic abuse” of residents. Many of the dead had telltale signs of severe ill treatment at their time of death, including bedsores, dehydration and malnutrition.

Amongst its key findings, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Leas Cross Nursing Home identifies the inadequacy of state inspections of the facility. It also identifies the fact that no one in the Health Boards or Beaumont Hospital either noticed or reported the high rate of admissions to the hospital of unwell, dehydrated, wound-infected and malnourished residents from Leas Cross. No one from either the Twenty-Six County Health Service Executive [HSE] or Beaumont Hospital is identified by name in the report, something which prompted relatives to denounce the report as a “whitewash”.

The most interesting aspect of the report, however, is that which links the registration by the state of 73 new beds, on top of the 38 already in use in Leas Cross since the business’ establishment in 1998, and their subsequent filling by high-dependency dementia and Alzheimer’s disease suffering former residents of St Ita’s Hospital in Portrane, County Dublin with a decline in levels of care. The report states that the registration of these beds occurred in the absence of due consideration being given to the quality of care that residents might subsequently be liable to experience.

Although the report’s author doesn’t make this point [and he should have], it is a fact, nonetheless, that a decline in standards of this type is a feature of what happens to health and social care services when they are ‘outsourced’ to private business interests. It goes something like this: it costs money to take care of residents. Businesses are concerned with making profit. The less money expended on the care of residents equals more profit. The tendency, therefore, is for the standard of care to be less where there is a profit motive. This is the logic of the market.

It is an iron law of capitalism that profit must be made if a business is to remain ‘viable’. Making profit from crucial social services is facilitated where you have a government that believes in the neo-liberal agenda. In effect, what you have, in this instance, is a situation where the state turns over crucial social services to private, for-profit business interests and, in the process, abdicates its responsibility to provide for the care of its infirm senior citizens. This is exactly what happened in Leas Cross.

One of the main findings of the report is that there was nowhere near enough qualified staff in Leas Cross to meet the needs of residents [qualified staff cost money] and no-one from the HSE to notice this because inspections weren’t prioritised – a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Rudolf Rickes could very easily have been writing about Ireland when, in his book Social Justice Yesterday – Today – Tomorrow, A Critical Reflection, he notes how, “If one considers the observation that the worth and dignity of a civilization is judged by the way it treats its weakest members, we cannot help but look back in shame at our past.”

However, Rickes didn’t need to refer to Ireland specifically. In noting the tendency in some ‘civilized’ societies to mistreat its weakest members, he was, in fact, referring to a characteristic that is a relatively constant feature of care systems in capitalist countries.
As callous as it might seem, the reality is that those who find themselves in the care of the state are, by that very fact, no longer contributors to the economy. Their age or infirmity makes them superfluous to the needs of the economy, unless that is, they can be sent out to work as slaves, which is exactly what happened in many state institutions. Their powerlessness means that they are liable to be and, often are, deemed a burden on the system.

As the recommendations of the McCarthy Bord Snip report clearly demonstrate, in bourgeois societies it is the health of the economy which is deemed to be far more important than the health and welfare of human beings. Where this is the principle that governs social and economic life, it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to see how the young and old in care might not be seen as a priority for those in control of society.

Mr Tony Mullins of the Leas Cross Deaths Relatives Action Group found it “ironic to note that the abuses highlighted in the report happened at a time of plenty and not cutbacks”. In the context of a capitalist state, however, there is, unfortunately, no irony at all in this fact.
In the final analysis, the abuse and neglect that occurred in residential care institutions derived principally from the fact that the people who inhabit them have traditionally been seen as a burden on the state and society. It has ever been a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’, and, once out of sight and out of mind, there has always existed the real possibility that a society that views the vulnerable and powerless this way will treat them accordingly. Thankfully, this is changing somewhat. Certainly, the ability of the authorities to keep secret what happens behind the high walls of its institutions is becoming less and less tenable. Hence, the Leas Cross report, although the best that Twenty-Six County minister for health and children Mary Harney could offer in the aftermath of its findings was that she couldn’t “guarantee this won’t happen again”, but could “guarantee that it would (if it happened again) be picked up quickly”.

The publication of the Leas Cross report does not for a second suggest that abuse and neglect does not still occur and will not occur in future in state institutions and the private companies to which the state has increasingly outsourced its responsibilities. Given the nature of government in the Twenty-Six County state, it is highly possible that this type of scenario will occur again in the future.

According to Age Action Ireland’s spokesperson Eamon Timmins: “The arms of the state responsible for protecting these people let them down, and let them down in a major way. It is unclear if the systemic failures would have hidden the problem if it had not been for the media.”
In an article entitled Respect for the elderly, Jim Clarke states that “a study into elder abuse by the National Council for Ageing and Older People estimated that as many as 12,000 older Irish people might be suffering from some form of abuse at any given time. The report, 'Abuse, neglect and mistreatment of older People' found that the reluctance of society to recognise the problem of elder abuse is merely following a pattern of how such abuses come to be accepted.”

As with all others forms of abuse and neglect, the institutionalised abuse and neglect of older people will continue as long as we have an economic system based upon the profit motive. We will continue to see the vulnerable suffer so long as the profit motive and outsourcing of social services is supported by a government that cherishes the market and is content to rule in a society where greed triumphs over need.

On a daily basis, we are reminded of the reality that the vision of the 1916 Proclamation remains just that, a vision. We are constantly reminded that the most important aspect of the liberation of Ireland, i.e. the liberation of its people, is impossible under capitalism. We are readily reminded of the chasm that exists between the intent, spirit and letter of the 1919 Democratic Programme of the First Dáil and that of every subsequent programme for government.

The more the state abdicates its responsibilities towards the young, the old and the infirm, the more it loses its right to govern. The more government surrenders to a neo-liberal agenda with its guiding notions of the ‘small state’ and the ‘government-as-facilitator for private business and profit’, the more it moves away from the citizen-centred principles at the heart of the 1916 Proclamation and the 1919 Democratic Programme.

The more it does so, the more it demands others to depose them and institute a system where the population and not profit margins are cherished.

Oppose Plastic Bullets and Twenty-Eight Day Detention
21/07/09

On August 9 1971, internment without trial was introduced in the occupied Six Counties. Within hours hundreds of republicans were being rounded up in dawn raids. For some of those detainees it would be years before they would be released from British custody. That introduction of internment marked a dramatic escalation in the conflict that was then raging across the Six Counties. Within less then five years, in December 1975, internment ended – in complete failure.

In 2009, Britain has reintroduced internment without trial to Ireland, in the form of twenty-eight day detention periods. Irish citizens can now be held by the occupation forces for up to four weeks without being charged or convicted. Earlier this year republicans were detained for the first time using this draconian legislation.

If further evidence was needed of the true nature of Britain’s role in Ireland the behaviour of the paramilitary PSNI on July 13, 2009 provides it. As residents of the Ardoyne district of North Belfast gathered on that date to peacefully protest against an unwanted sectarian march, they were met by hundreds of PSNI members in full riot gear. Within hours the PSNI were indiscriminately firing plastic bullets, injuring ten people.

Plastic and rubber bullets have already killed seventeen people in Ireland. The use of such lethal weapons for ‘crowd control’ purposes has long been condemned by all right-thinking people across Ireland and beyond.

On August 8, éirígí will be holding demonstrations at the British Embassy in Dublin and at Enniskillen PSNI Barracks to mark the introduction of internment in 1971 and to oppose both 28-day detention and the use of plastic bullets.

On the following day, there will be a public meeting on Belfast’s Falls Road, focusing on the introduction of internment in August 1971 and the contemporary use of repressive legislation by the British government. Speakers will include former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ruhal Ahmed, former Long Kesh internee and H-Block escaper Gerry McDonnell and human rights lawyer Pádraigín Drinan, who represented the hooded men. The meeting will start at 3pm on Sunday, August 9 in the Conway Education Centre, Conway Mill, Falls Road, Belfast.

Speaking in advance of the Dublin protest éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson said, “Over the course of the last twelve months there has been a dramatic escalation in British operations in Ireland. We have seen the British Army redeployed in the form of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, twenty-eight day detention introduced, peaceful protests forcibly suppressed, and most recently we have seen plastic bullets being fired once again. In addition there has been a noticeable upsurge in harassment and attempts to recruit informers.

“Our protest on August 8 will give people in Dublin an opportunity to show their opposition to the ongoing occupation in general and twenty-eight day detention and plastic bullet use in particular. I would encourage everyone who supports Irish freedom to come along to the protest and make their voice heard.”


-Protest: PSNI Barracks, Enniskillen, Saturday August 8, 12pm

-Protest: British Embassy, Dublin, Saturday August 8, 2pm

-Public meeting: Conway Mill, Belfast, Sunday August 9, 3pm

Elderly Must Not be Made to Pay
13/07/09
Donegal éirígí spokesperson Micheál Cholm Mac Giolla Easbuig has slammed cutbacks by the Twenty-Six County Health Service Executive (HSE) in the home help support service and has called for them to be reversed immediately.

Mac Giolla Easbuig was speaking as a well-attended protest march against the cutbacks took place in Ballybofey on Saturday [July 11].

Between 25-30,000 home help hours are due to be cut in Donegal alone, with similar cutbacks proposed throughout the Twenty-Six Counties. The draconian move follows a previous reduction in home help hours in 2008 and cuts which were introduced by the HSE earlier this year.

Micheál said: "The provision of home help is an essential service and a vital life-line for many elderly and sick people throughout the country, but particularly in rural areas like Donegal.
“That these services are now being cut back in such a sweeping manner is disgraceful. The people dependent on these services are some of the most vulnerable people in our society. They need more assistance, not less. The reality is that we have an aging population in Ireland, which increases the necessity for these services.

“Home help services actually save the state considerable expense – by taking care of those in need within the community it prevents them from being needlessly forced into nursing homes. It prevents the deterioration of their health and their hospitalisation for acute treatment at a far greater financial cost. Proper care within the community improves their quality of life, as they deserve, but also reduces the cost to the tax-payer.

“These cutbacks will hurt the sick and elderly, are unjust and must be reversed immediately. The HSE and their political masters need to invest increased funding and resources into home help support and other similar community services, to expand and improve the service further.”
Micheál concluded: “Our elderly deserve first class public care and must not be made to pay for the greed and corruption of the business people and politicians that led to the current economic crisis.”