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Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

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Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

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Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Right-Wing Karol Nawrocki Wins Polish Presidential Election Mon Jun 02, 2025 11:12 | Will Jones
Right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki has won Poland's?Presidential election?in a tight contest, beating pro-EU Rafal Trzaskowski with 50.89% of the vote in a heavy blow to PM Donald Tusk's liberalising Government.
The post Right-Wing Karol Nawrocki Wins Polish Presidential Election appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Activist Scientists Rage About Trump?s Executive Order, Comparing Him to Hitler For Insisting That F... Mon Jun 02, 2025 09:00 | Chris Morrison
The Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor Chris Morrison welcomes President Trump's new order calling for a more scientific approach for federally-funded science projects. Of course, woke scientists think it makes him Hitler.
The post Activist Scientists Rage About Trump?s Executive Order, Comparing Him to Hitler For Insisting That Federally-Funded Science Projects Are More Scientifically Rigorous appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Hermer and Starmer Masquerade as Human Rights Laywers. But in Reality They?re Merciless Authoritaria... Mon Jun 02, 2025 07:00 | Laurie Wastell
Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, didn't just sign off on the prosecution of Lucy Connolly, says Laurie Wastell. He also consented to the prosecution of Jamie Michael and Mark Heath, both of whom were acquitted.
The post Hermer and Starmer Masquerade as Human Rights Laywers. But in Reality They?re Merciless Authoritarians appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Mon Jun 02, 2025 00:58 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Ukraine Claims Huge Drone Attack on ?More Than 40 Bombers? Sun Jun 01, 2025 19:00 | Richard Eldred
In what's been dubbed "Russia?s Pearl Harbour", Ukraine has reportedly destroyed over 40 nuclear-capable bombers in a daring drone strike on a Siberian air base, dealing a massive blow to Putin's air power.
The post Ukraine Claims Huge Drone Attack on ?More Than 40 Bombers? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

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Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

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Ireland in breach of UN Forced Labour Convention

category national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis author Saturday February 20, 2016 10:07author by Vince McGreal Report this post to the editors

In 1932, Ireland ratified the United Nations’ Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (1930). The Convention defines forced labour as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”
Eighty-four years later, Ireland is in breach of that convention.

In 2012, Pathways to Work policy statement, largely copied from the UK, was adopted and signed, among others, by Enda Kenny and Joan Burton. Apart from providing training and education for the unemployed, which have been available long before 2012, the activation system offers them not real jobs but year-long JobBridge “internships” and “apprenticeships” as cleaners and porters. Such offers of practically unpaid (a little more than one euro an hour) work disguised as training now cannot be refused, because they are backed up with sanctions: it can be either a cut of €44 from the weekly €188, or even the suspension of payments for up to nine weeks, which exposes people to starvation, hypothermia and debt. These are the penalties for not volunteering to do unpaid work for businesses, or an analogue of community service on the Gateway and Tús schemes that include cleaning and renovating council-owned buildings and parks. One previously had to commit an offence to be sentenced to this!

Incredibly, this matter hasn’t yet become a major issue in the general election campaign. The mainstream politicians are seemingly happy to allow such treatment of their own countrymen to continue. We are about to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising, but the society plagued with forced labour is not exactly what the heroes of 1916 fought for. Officially, people pressed into doing unpaid work are classed as employed, so the unemployment rate falls. One may think that we are trying to imitate the Roman Empire where all were happily employed – as either slave owners or slaves.

Related Link: http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/the-complications-and-myths-surrounding-unemployment-and-social-welfare-356528.html
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