The Glen Stream – ban chemical weedkiller

The use of chemical weedkiller along the edge of the Glen stream by Drogheda Borough Council (or private grass cutting contractors engaged by the council) has angered residents in the area. A number of local people have raised concerns about the weedkiller seeping into the stream and it’s consequent damaging effect on it’s pond-life and the bird life of the area.

Health Service – National Protest October 11th

The Demonstration organised by the Public Health Service Campaign, an umbrella organisation comprising the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, the youth committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Patients Together group, on March 29th last in Dublin united trade unions, patients and hospital groups, health professionals and people from all over Ireland in a demand for a health service available to all in need of healthcare. Members of the local SOCU (Save our Cancer Unit) group and the Drogheda Council of Trade Unions participated in this protest.

The politically “independent” press

In recent weeks I had two seperate, strange (indeed curious) encounters with a couple of local Fianna Fail Borough councillors. The first, a southside-based councillor, stopped me in the street (Patrick Street) and immediately asked me to “tell Darren Hughes (Director of Operations, Drogheda Independent) that he’ll never get anywhere with the Labour Party”.

New Labour – the new right

An item on this morning’s (Wednesday September 17th) “Loosetalk” programme on LMFM Radio on the imminent demise of the PDs, in part, took the form of a discussion on the “present state of politics in Ireland”.

Lies, damned lies and “official opposition” politics

The famous “there are lies, damned lies and statistics” line could well be adapted to describe the antics of the official opposition of Fine Gael (and Labour) in Irish politics.

Pay-parking hypocrisy

Condemnation from local political representatives, most notably Fine Gael, at Iarnrod Eireann’s decision to introduce pay parking at Drogheda’a McBride station is no more than a politically opportunistic attack on the state railway company. All of Drogheda’s establishment party political public representatives are fully signed up to, and fully support Drogheda Borough Council’s and the Drogheda Port Company’s policy of pay parking around town centre streets.
To single out Iarnrod Eireann for a sustained campaign of public criticism on the pay-parking issue, as has been the case with local Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd (and Fine Gael Cllrs Michael O’Dowd and Anthony Donohue) particularly given their track record of total support for bin charges, is a most dishonest and underhand attempt to undermine Iarnrod Eireann, simply because it is a nationalised public company.
The Socialist Party has consistently condemned and opposed any and all forms of stealth taxation irrespective of whether levied by public (including Iarnrod Eireann) or private sources. We have a rock solid, honest and principled record of highlighting various rip-off practices right across the board from water charges, bin taxes, hospital charges, mandatory “voluntary” contributions to schools, parking charges and so on. In fact we were the very first political organisation to highlight the rip-off of home-buyers, as far back as 1998, by estate agents, mortgage lending institutions and the residential property lobby generally. This was at a time when the media, all the other political groupings and even the trade union leadership in the country were idolising and holding up the falsified “residential property market” as the benchmark of Ireland’s celtic tiger economic transformation.
By any objective standard, parking charges notwithstanding, Iarnrod Eireann and it’s employees are right up with the very best in the world when it comes to running and delivering a national rail transport service. On the other hand, public representatives who “pimp” their privatisation agenda at every opportunity (simply to court the lowest common electoral denominator) do themselves absolutely no credit.