UNEMPLOYMENT – 27% in Drogheda

More than one in every four of Drogheda’s total labour of force of 17,879 are out of work according to official statistics for the month of October. Add in those who are engaged in Fas shemes like C.E. (Community Enterprise) and J.I. (Job Initiative) as well as various ”back to education” courses, and the town’s real unemployment figure is even worse.

BATU General Secretary assaults striking staff member

The October issue of “The Socialist”  (the monthly newspaper of the Socialist Party) published an exclusive story of a physical assault carried out by the General Secretary of the Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU) General Secretary, Paddy O’Shaughnessy (who is also a member of the Executive of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions) on striking BATU clerical worker Susan Fitzgerald.

STOP THE CUTBACKS – Unions must organise action now

THE PARTIAL back down by the government on the over 70s medical card scandal is a huge blow to the authority of the Fianna Fail – Green Party – Harney coalition.

Mell’s road traffic hell

Drogheda Independent journalist and Deputy Group Editor, Hubert Murphy, courageously bucked the local and national media trend of holding up Drogheda’s massive residential over-development as a mark of the town’s “economic miracle”, and instead told it as it really is in his published atticle this week, headed “Trapped in traffic at Mell”.