Accommodation is one of the most critical issues for the Traveller community and is identified in the 2013-2020 Healthy Ireland Report as the most significant determinant on health.

The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 enshrines in law the requirement of local authorities to provide culturally appropriate accommodation in all its forms, including halting sites, group housing schemes, standard houses and transient accommodation to Travellers.

Local authorities, following a consultation process with locally based Traveller organisations and the Traveller community are required to prepare and adopt a 5 year Traveller Accommodation Programme (TAP) to meet the existing and projected accommodation needs of Travellers in their areas.
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Some reflections on what's happening now -- and what needs to happen instead... read full story / add a comment

The ongoing Irish water crisis has seen the emergence of a sustained mass movement of people, protesting the imposition of these punitive charges. read full story / add a comment

The vintage Hawker Hunter fighter plane that crashed on to a busy roadway during an air show in Shoreham, Sussex on 22 August also performed at recent air shows in Ireland at Shannon, Bray and Foynes. Between them these were attended by up to 150,000 people. read full story / add a comment

Recent reports have suggested that Ireland is set to become the most obese country in Europe. read full story / add a comment

On 5th of August 2015 the Irish Navy ship LÉ Niamh was sent to help an overcrowded vessel about 25 miles off the Libyan coast. As two rigid inflatable boats (Ribs) from the LÉ Niamh approached they signaled to the people to stay where they were so that life jackets could be given out.

However, according to Capt Dave Barry: “Whatever happened, a number rushed to one side, and it capsized and sank in a couple of minutes”.

A total of 367 survivors and 25 bodies were taken to the Sicilian port of Palermo.

Up to 700 people were believed to have been on board. read full story / add a comment

Recently, due to a joint cooperation of the Tel Aviv and Paris municipal government, a section of river bank in Paris was
turned into “Tel Aviv sur Seine” , complete with falafel stands
and “Israeli nightlife. Of course in order to promote Israel. No promotion of a 48 years occupation power with as ´´falafel´´
the Gaza Blockade and as ´´nightlife´´bombings of Gaza and shooting of Palestinian children. On the Gaza beach. read full story / add a comment

DSPP provides some useful tips for young people who may feel stressed after tomorrow's results for young people. This article is solely associated with Dublin Suicide Prevention Project and our policy towards young people and not any other associations (Professional, family or other) that that founders Mary Cullinane or Wayne F. Tobin may have. It is merely advice to young people from a personal perspective in line with DSSP guidelines. Thank-you read full story / add a comment

Anti-water charge campaigners had a major moral victory over government plans to make the people pay for the financial crisis when Eurostat determined that Irish Water had failed the Market Corporation Test.[1] read full story / add a comment

At the end of yet another «historic» marathon session Brussels negotiations between the Greek government and its creditors, a «definitive» agreement has yet again been found to «resolve" the Greek crisis: Greek Prime Minister Tsipras and his team have come to accept as a condition for new loans to the virtually bankrupt Greek government, a plan of austerity measures significantly harsher than he had rejected a week earlier and against which he had, supposedly, held a referendum! The only point where he apparently got something concrete, is that of the reduction in military spending: the creditors have accepted that it is weaker than what they asked for... read full story / add a comment

The die has been cast. The Geek prime minister Tsipras, who won the elections
because of his promise to make an end to Trojka austerity measures, has capitulated,
accepting the hardest EU deal with Greece ever. Shame on him and his party
Syriza, which has lost every credibility. It's a horrible betrayal of OXI, plunging
the Greek people in still worse misery. People of Greece, fight for Freedom! read full story / add a comment

The entire debate as to whether Greece should stay within the Euro or not is a bourgeois debate of no real relevance to the working class. read full story / add a comment

Recently a major and moral decision was made to quell California legislature as to whether people suffering with terminal illness should have the right to die with dignity. Democrats did not have enough votes although the legislation might come back later in the year? To the extent that there was much of a debate in the news it has been one-sided with a chorus of status quo preventivists. Religion has once again slammed up common sense and compassion.
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The following statement is issued by various progressive individuals and organizations from many parts of the world, but mostly in Asia-Pacific. A copy of the statement has already been sent to Syriza's international department.

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The various programmes advanced by much of the radical left are lodged within the limits of capitalism. But it these very limits that the Greek financial crisis is manifesting. Leftists proposing the limits of capitalism to solve those very limits is a contradiction.
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Despite all the contemporary global interconnectedness, the lack of an international social consciousness among artists (whose work is linked only by its sameness and market-ready designs and styles) evokes frustration in the politically conscious critic and commentator. read full story / add a comment

The very clear lessons on coalition with the right that now must be re learned by the left in Ireland all over again. The failure so far to rule out a coalition involving Fianna Fail, Labour and Fianna Gael is a failure to learn the lessons of historical compromises of the past. The left in Ireland must set out to build a real alternative to the narrative of austerity propagated by the capitalist parties in Ireland and supported by Labour.
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The drip feed of questionable deals carried out by NAMA is well under way. Regularly now, we see information reaching the public domain whereby NAMA have sold stressed assets at less than their real value and the purchasers are turning them over within 2 years, at profit ranging from 30% to 40%/ The purchasers are mostly foreign investment funds – ‘vulture funds ‘ – who have picked on the carcass of the stressed Irish property market. Many of them have retained the assets, and become serious players in the residential rental market in Ireland, especially Dublin, and have developed a controlling influence, managing to drive up rents astronomically in our capital city. This all doesn’t make them evil people – they just do what they do, it’s called unfettered Capitalism - our problem as Irish citizens is that our Government have allowed a situation to develop whereby the vulture funds win and the Irish tax payer loses. And our present Neo Liberal Government think that this is all fine. I believe otherwise. Here’s my Leader’s Questions with Taoiseach Enda Kenny this week, who knows that all is not well. - read full story / add a comment

Privatisation of Postal Services - A great little neoliberal country to do business in…

Yesterday afternoon in the Dáil, we discussed the Communications Regulation (Postal Service) (Amendment) Bill 2015 – a piece of legislation that represents the latest push by this Government to further its neoliberal agenda through the privatisation, or “outsourcing,” of public services in this country. Under this new legislation, our new national postcode system – Eircode – will be privatised and administered by Capita Ireland, which is part of the £7bn Capita multinational corporation, a global conglomerate with vast experience of snapping up lucrative state contracts around the world.
I asked the Minister why at least €27m of taxpayers’ money is being pumped into a postcode system that many in the delivery industry have described “lacking vision” and utterly useless, while at the same time, rural post offices are being closed down, further isolating the communities they serve. Rural Ireland, and in particular those most vulnerable, are being abandoned in favour of big business. Here’s my contribution in the Chamber. – read full story / add a comment

The following statement, as a contribution to the debate at the conference organised by the R2W unions on June 13, has been agreed between the People Before Profit Alliance,the Anti-Austerity Alliance, and some independent left-wing activists including Cllr Brendan Young.

The Mayday Conference initiated by the Right2Water Trade Unions was designed to bring union members, community groups and political representatives into dialogue about an alternative to the political and economic establishment. We welcome the fact that these unions initiated such a meeting to build a political movement based on the anti-water charges struggle of the last eight months. Unfortunately, the meeting was a limited and invite-only event, without sufficient space for discussion. read full story / add a comment