Lisbon – EU to force new vote

A plan to “isolate” Ireland, and the Irish public, and force a second referendum by next March (2009) was discussed at an EU meeting held in Paris on October 9th. Leaked minutes of the meeting, and also a “working dinner” with the French Minister for European Affairs, record how key French politicians and other MEPs have agreed to “put Ireland in an untenable position” by getting Poland and the Czech Republic to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by December. The minutes of both events were leaked to journalist Richard Oakley of the Sunday Times by a “high-level (EU) source”.

Medical Cards – pensioners declare war

All-out war has been declared on the Fianna Fail-led coalition government by the country’s pensioners, their representative organisations and interest groups, following the Budget decision to remove the automatic entitlement of “the over 70s” to a medical card. On Tuesday and Wednesday, October 21st and 22nd hundreds of “O’uld Duffers” from all over the country, armed with their travel passes, will invade the capital and lay siege to Dail Eireann in two seperate hour-long, lunch-time protests from 12.30 – 1-30. (times to be confirmed).

Drogheda United and the politics of the planning process

Justice Minister and Louth Fianna Fail TD Dermot Ahern’s assertion that decisions of the National Roads Authority (NRA) are part of the country’s politically “independent planning process” is as farcical as the notion that a full-time, fully professional, national soccer league is a sustainable capatilist, free-market enterprise. Anyone with an interest in the sport, will vividly remember how Dermot’s namesake (and ex-”gaffer”) Bertie, unashamedly used and abused the very same politically “independent” planning process to do down the FAI’s Eircom Park project, which was to be the country’s soccer headquarters and the home venue for international matches.

Re-build community solidarity

Ireland’s economic boom was built on ordinary workers voluntarily accepting pay restraint under the guise of so-called “National Partnership Agreements”. Whilst ordinary workers were led up the garden path and into “acting responsibly and in the national interest”, business and commerce was laughing up their sleeves at them, all the while taking sky high profits, bonuses and dividends on everything from high street retail activity to residential property transactions.