Cllr Joan Collins: a voice for people, community and the environment SIPTU Community Sector CALL FOR ACTION Wednesday JUNE 3 12 noon

SIPTU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1

As you know, the Government is slashing expenditure across a range of services and programmes. Unfortunately the Community Sector is becoming the focus for the Department of Finance and their guillotine approach to funding. To protest against current cutbacks and to protect jobs, services and communities into the future, the SIPTU Community Branch is organising a mass meeting for community workers and activists on:

The general meeting will be followed by a march to the Department of Finance so that they can hear our message loud and clear: “They Say Cutbacks! We Say Fight Back!” The community sector cannot be seen as a soft touch.

Already a number of areas have had their budgets reduced:

• Severe reduction for drug task force projects
• Training and material budgets cut for Community Employment
• Local Partnerships budgets cut up to 16%
• Community childcare still struggles under the Subvention Scheme
• Oversees development NGOs funding slashed
• Community development projects funding cut by up to 15%
• Supports for the community and voluntary sector; 32% cut
• Supports for older people are down to €727,000 from €4.3 million

The day of action is open to all union members and non members in the community sector.
If you have any queries on the campaign or SIPTU in general, please contact an organiser at:
T: 1890 747 881
E: Community@siptu.ie
W: www.siptu.ie/community

STOP THE CUTS

Protest at Crumlin Children’s Hospital

SATURDAY

May 23, 12 noon

HSE hospital network manager John Bulfin stated in a letter to Crumlin Children’s Hospital in January: “Savings should be targeted to ensure frontline patient care services are appropriately maintained.”

This is what he means by maintaining appropriate patient care services.

Because of a forecasted deficit of €9.6 million, three wards will shut down this year, starting with St Joseph ’s due to close on May 14th with two more to close in July and August.

Protesters at Crumlin Children's Hospital

There will be over 7,000 fewer in-patient bed days at the hospital this year. Theatres will also close and there will also be a 15 per cent reduction in day case activity along with a 15 per cent reduction in outpatient activity.

Two “play” specialists will be lost. These specialists are crucially important for many children.

It is expected that the contracts of 17 household workers will not be renewed in May. There will be cuts in agency staffing and in staff holding temporary contracts, and also in overtime and on-call payments.

Cllr Joan Collins addressing demonstrators outside the hospital

In other words, the State’s largest children’s hospital will not be open for our children this summer. Operations will be cancelled. If a child breaks an arm/leg what will happen?

This is a step too far – our wages have been cut and a lot of us are losing jobs but when our children’s health and lives are put at risk we have to take action and take it now.

The HSE must not be allowed to put its accounts before our children’s welfare.

Parents, children, hospital workers must come out on May 23. We will organise the immediate next steps from the protest to stop this lunacy.

Issued by the Save our Crumlin Children’s Hospital Campaign

Contact Theresa Shallow 086-2711404; Cllr Joan Collins 086-3888151 or Brid Smith 087-9090166

People Before Profit

WORKERS UNITE

Get Out On The Streets And Protest

Stop the Bail-Out of the Banks

Oppose Levies on PAYE Workers

Assemble May 16, 2.30pm at the Central Bank, Dame Street, Dublin

On May16th , a day of action has been called by the European Trade Union Congress under the banner Fight The Crisis. Put People First.

Grassroots Unite are calling on everyone – trade unionist or not, public AND private sector workers and the unemployed to get out on the streets and protest against the bailout of the banks, socially unjust taxes, pension and income levies, cuts in jobs, pay, hours, pension benefits, medical services, education and social welfare.

Let’s unite with workers across Europe and use the opportunity to begin to build a fightback in Ireland.

Grassroots Unite is an alliance of trade unionists from several unions which was formed on Monday, 27th April, at an open meeting held to discuss grassroots mobilisation against the pension levy and budget cuts etc. The meeting also aimed to provide a forum for discussion on the current situation and the poor response of the ICTU.

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www.collinsjoan.ie; mobile: 086 3888151

Dear Friend

As your representative on Dublin City Council for the past five years I am taking this opportunity to write to you before you go to vote. Despite changes to the local election boundaries, I hope to continue as your councillor and will stand for election in the Crumlin-Kimmage Ward on Friday June 5, this time affiliated to the People Before Profit Alliance, a group of independents and groups nationwide who seriously want to build a real opposition to the failed politics of corruption, speculation and greed.

I have been proud to organise wherever I could. I instigated the support group to successfully reinstate Joanne Delaney, sacked for her union activity in Dunnes Stores in the Ashleaf Shopping Centre. This was the first time Margaret Heffernan ever backed down.

I am proud to have organised with the community against all the odds. Every other councillor was initially willing to vote to rezone the park to build flats in Pearse Park – we stopped them through people power. I want to continue to organise a campaign to keep our swimming pool, a community childcare facility and campaign with the clubs who use the park to develope them and keep the park accessible to the community.

I want to continue to be able to campaign with the community to develop Neagh Road Park into an amenity for local people. Again, if the likes of myself was not on the council, this park would have, behind the scenes, had housing built on it and the community would have been wondering how the hell it happened. When the council was trying to have a low key public meeting about this, I, with the residents, leafletted the four roads and ensured there was a huge turnout. That meeting stopped the council’s disastrous proposal. The parks dept has agreed to put benches there and put locks on the gates and are in serious talks with community reps to developed it as a people’s park.

I am again proud to have initiated and actively campaigned with the DN12 Dag and residents associations to stop some of the disastrous planning applications for our area: Bursey Peppers, Ryans Shaw Arms, the Bank of Ireland site on Walkinstown Ave, the petrol station site opposite, St Agnes Church, the Star Bingo, still with An Bord Pleanala etc. Dn12 DAG wants sustainable development with community amenities.

I was elected in 2001 as an anti bin tax councillor and I continue to lead opposition to this double taxation. After all the harassment, bullying, threats, debt collectors and even after the jailing of 25 campaign activists, including my partner. The cost of using the service is increasing each year. Private companies have now moved in to cherrypick the best aspects of waste management and our areas will suffer with job losses and cuts to services. We have seen this and other double taxes rise steadily each year. And, make no mistake, an attempt to bring in water charges and property taxes is not far off. I say attempt, because it will depend whether you and me organise to stop it. This is why I am standing again with the endorsement of the campaign.

The same story is being repeated in all services. Just recently we saw the anger of pensioners, parents, teachers, students and taxi drivers burst onto the streets in massive protests. We are expected to pick up the tab for the debts and at the same time accept wage cuts, job losses and cuts in public services.

Look at the billions thrown at the Anglo Irish Bank and now after the biggest economic boom ever in this country, working people are being hit the hardest to pay for the mess that has been made of the economy. TDs readily accept increments while many workers public and private are losing their jobs and losing money in our pay packets.

The issues that affect this area are national issues too. We have to campaign on every front to defend what we have, our bus services, access to public health service. education services, and to make sure that the bankers and the wasters who gained from the so-called Celtic Tiger pay up for their uncontrolled greed.

This year I need your support. As one of the few Dublin City councillors who have stuck with the bin tax campaign in this area I hope I can rely on your vote on June 5. I also need whatever you can give in the election campaign – if you can drop leaflets or stuff envelopes or put up posters or come to meetings or just talk to your friends and family, all and any support will be very much appreciated. Please get in touch if you can help or indeed if you need help with any of the issues affecting the area. I have always relied on your support, financially and actively.

I believe it is crucial that the next election is fought to get people elected who want to see a massive change in how our city and our country are run. It is time to put the needs of people and community before the profits of banks and big business. People before profit candidates are standing in other constituencies in Dublin and we hope, after the elections, to be a force to be reckoned with, putting the interests of our community into principled action and not just words. As the old saying goes watch what I do not what I say.
MAYDAY FUNDRAISER, VILLAGE INN, CRUMLIN
SUNDAY, MAY 3, 8.30pm.
7 euro. Music, food and craic.

Please come along and support the election campaign.

Unity is strength, Yours sincerely

Councillor Joan Collins

Contact Joan at 086 388815 or dermotjoan@utvinternet.ie

Campaign for a Decent Health Service

You thought it couldn’t get any worse? There are now 2,700 fewer front line workers in our hospitals and community health services since the HSE introduced restrictions on hiring staff earlier this year. It hasn’t taken this government long, with the first indications of an economic slowdown, to go from boasting about the billions it is spending on health, to re-introducing health cuts.

By keeping Mary Harney as Minister for Health, Brian Cowen has sent a very clear message that there will be no change in government policy. That means the crises in A&E units will continue, long waiting lists will remain for treatment and operations, the deliberate rundown of public health care will go on and as will the closure of local hospitals while speculators get tax breaks to build for-profit hospitals in the grounds of public hospitals.

In short, it means more Susie Longs, people dying because they can’t access the treatment they deserve. Despite being one of the richest countries in Europe, a recent OECD report showed that the level of funding on our public services, including health and education, was still below that of the higher spending EU states.

If this situation is to change, the campaign for a Decent Public Health Service needs to be built into a mass campaign of health workers, health campaign groups, and ordinary people.

What’s required is the sacking of Harney, the abolition of the HSE, an end to co-location, an end to the subsidising of for-profit health care, the overturning of the latest recruitment embargo, keeping open local hospitals, and funding of public health care well above the EU average to make up for the cuts and under-funding of the past.

A weakness of the national demonstration in March was the absence of tens of thousands of health workers, despite the call by the main unions, especially SIPTU, for workers’ support. Much more needs to be done for the day of national protest in June and for the next national demonstration planned by the campaign for the autumn.

Contact 087 622 9686 or dctuhealth@gmail.com for more info

Councillor Joan Collins Tel: 086-3888151 Clinic: First Wednesday of every month 3pm-4pm, Lr Crumlin Youth Centre, Clogher Road

Cllr Joan Collins: building an alternative that puts people before profit

Joan has been your representative on Dublin City Council for the last five years. Despite changes to the local election boundaries Joan will continue as your representative  and will stand for election in the Crumlin/Kimmage Ward in next year’s local election.

Joan was elected as an anti bin tax councillor, and while continuing to lead opposition to double taxation, including the likely attempt to bring in water charges after the local elections, there are many issues facing working people, not least of which was the outrageous budget  introduced in September by this government.

For these reasons Joan will be standing next year as a People Before Profit Alliance candidate. People Before Profit does what it says on the tin, puts the interests of working people before the greed for profit of the banks, speculators, developers and big business in general.
You can contact Joan at 0863888151 if you have concerns on any issue

Bankers profits put before the elderly, the young and the vulnerable

The current economic crisis is the result of years of neoliberal economic policies that have favoured the interests of big business and profit over the needs of people and the environment.

We reject completely the attempts of government and business to make working people pay for this crisis through cut-backs in services, pay-cuts and job losses.

The economic chaos now gripping Ireland and the world economy signal the need for a radical shift in the priorities of our society to put the needs of people before profit.

We say:
NO TO CORPORATE BAIL OUTS – TAKE THE BANKS  INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.  APPOINT NEW BOARDS OF MANAGEMENT TO INCLUDE BANK WORKERS, AND USE FINANCIAL RESOURCES FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT TO MEET THE NEEDS OF ALL CITIZENS.

NO TO PRIVATISATION AND CUTBACKS IN PUBLIC SERVICES –  ADEQUATE CENTRAL FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS AND VITAL SERVICES TO REPLACE SERVICE CHARGES.

YES TO SUBSIDISED FUEL PRICES – TAKE CORRIB GAS INTO PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

MAKE BIG BUSINESS, COMMERCIAL BANKS AND THE SUPER-WEALTHY BANKS PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES TO FUND PUBLIC SERVICES PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE IN OUR SOCIETY. EQUALITY FOR WOMEN, MIGRANT WORKERS, SENIOR CITIZENS AND ALL CHILDREN.

Help us fight the cuts

The budget cuts include supports for children with special needs, health services, cancer screening, community creches, disability services, cuts in language support, access to free school books increased class sizes and more.

We want to build up a detailed picture of how these cuts will impact in Crumlin, Kimmage and Walkinstown. We will be contacting schools and community groups to ask them how the cuts will affect them. If you have information of this sort we would really welcome your input.

Our aim is to build an anti cuts coalition in Dublin 12 and 6W and to link up with other such groups across the city and country-wide.

How the rich have prospered

We are told that ireland became one of the richest countries in the world during the celtic tiger boom. this is based on the rise of income per head of the population, but it doesn’t mean that everyone benefited equally, far from it. Many didn’t benefit at all, we have one of the highest levels of child poverty in the EU.

Meanwhile, the personal wealth of of the top 1% grew by €75 billion between 1995 and 2007.

Excluding household property, in 2006 the top 1% had 30% of the wealth and had assets of €100 billion.

There were 33,000 millionaires in 2006, 3,000 with between €5 million and €30 million, and 330 people with more than €30 million.

You might think these people are paying huge amounts of tax, but think again. Figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that only 7,857 people declared incomes over €275,000 a year and only 25,000 with incomes above €150,000. It doesn’t add up.

Join the People Before Profit Alliance

Come to the meeting to find out  more and get involved, or contact us @ 0877675691
We meet every month in the Village Inn in Crumlin Village

Councillor Joan Collins to address

WOMEN’S HEALTH RALLY

SAVE CERVICAL CANCER SERVICES
FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN

Assemble 2pm at

The Spire, O’Connell Street

Saturday 15th November

Speakers Include Councillor Joan Collins, Sinead Kennedy.

Elisa O’Donovan and more

Followed by public meeting at 3.30pm in the Teachers Club,

Parnell square

For more info contact feministopenforum@gmail.com/087-9120231

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Anti Service Charges

Public Meeting

Wednesday July 16 8.30pm

WASF Hall, Moeran Road, Walkinstown,

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Cllr Joan Collins: “I abstained from [the council vote on the Lord Mayor] this year as I couldn’t lend support to the joint candidate put forward by the Labour/Fianna Fail pact, I couldn’t vote for the Fine Gael candidate and I couldn’t vote for the Sinn Fein candidate.”

Voting pact for Lord Mayor ‘disgusting’

On June 30th Dublin City Council’s annual meeting took place. This meeting “elects” the city’s Lord Mayor.

In 2004 Labour joined forces with Fine Gael, the Green and the PDs “rainbow Coalition” to divide the Lord
Mayor and deputy Lord Mayor office for the council’s five-year term. There was a fanfare of polilical agreement on issues.

Michael Connaughton (Labour) was voted Lord Mayor by the cabal of Fine Gael, Labour Party, Green Party and the PDs. Catherine Byrne (Fine Gael) was voted Lod Mayor the following year under the same arrangement.

The trend was bucked briefly when Vincent Jackson was voted Lord Mayor. This time the vote between the Labour candidate and Vincent Jackson was equal and Vincent’s name was pulled out of a hat.

The following year Paddy Burke was voted in (Labour got the job under a new pact with Fianna Fail which guaranteed that this year they would get the Lord Mayor position).

I find this type of wheeling and dealing disgusting. There is no principled politics and the job of Lord Mayor becomes a tool for the city manager (who would also be included in the loop of discussions before the annual meeting.

I abstained from the voting this year as I could not lend support to the joint candidate put forward by the
Labour/Fianna fail pact, I could not vote for the Fine Gael candidate and I could not vote for the Sinn Fein candidate.

I abstained from the Sinn Fein vote because at last year’s Estimates meeting, two Sinn Fein councillors voted for the estimates (which include the bin tax). This flew in the face of the people’s campaign in the city to resist the imposition of the double taxation of our waste collection and the 23 people who were sent to jail for resisting the non collection of our waste in 2003.

The review of local government raises the issue of a directly elected Lord Mayor, which I support, handing back powers to city councillors but also includes proposals to introduce stealth taxes on the people of the city. The city manager has already sent in a submission with the support of the Finance SPC (made up of councillors to seek the power to introduce water tax, property taxes, recycling taxes, motor taxes etc).

I oppose this form of stealth tax and the Anti Bin-Tax Campaign has held a series of meetings to inform people in the Crumlin/Kimmage ward of Government and councils’ s intention to impose these stealth taxes on the people.

At these meetings the Anti Bin-Tax campaign has agreed to rename the campiagn the Anti Service Tax Campaign. I would encourage local campaigns to do the same and make this issue a major item for the Local Council elections in 2009.

New charges on the way?

Join our campaign

PUBLIC MEETINGS

Tuesday, July 8

John Bosco Youth Club, Davitt Road at 7.45pm

Wednesday July 9

Transport Club (Darts Club), Rutland Avenue at 7.45pm

Wednesday July 16

WASF Hall, Moeran Road, Walkinstown, 8.30pm

Recently Kerry county councillors agreed a €200 annual water charge which they wanted to introduce under cover as an “amenity charge”. The plan was shelved due to fierce local opposition.

But it’s a sign of where councils would like to go.

Several councils have made submissions to the commission on local council funding seeking permission for new charges. Plans afoot include

• a recycling charge;
• increased motor tax;
• an amenity charge (water);
• an environment tax and
• a tax on all cans, bottles and cartons sold in the Dublin area.

This will all be kept quiet until after next year’s local elections. But there is no doubt that the government – having squandered our taxes in the boom – will now be looking to new stealth taxes and cuts in services.

Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Greens and what’s left of the PDs will support new charges. Labour will oppose them in the election, and then vote for them on the council as they did with the bin tax.

The Anti Bin-Tax Campaign is now considering the need to broaden out and rebuild as an anti service charges campaign. Come to one of our meetings and get involved.

Contact Cllr Joan Collins at 086 3888 151

SUPPORT DUBLIN BUS

The conduct of Dublin Bus management at Harristown this week is another attempt to erode workers’ conditions and privatise a public service, says Cllr Joan Collins.

A meeting of the Community and Workers Action Group in Crumlin last night condemned the actions of Dublin Bus management and offered its full support and solidarity to Dublin Bus workers.

Management’s actions – the introduction of two new routes, the insistence that drivers operating the routes should now start and end their six-hour shifts in the city centre, the suspension of a colleague – have led to the current dispute.

Joan Collins appealed to all bus workers to support their colleagues in Harristown as the issue there will have repercussions for all Dublin Bus workers.

“The stance of the drivers is fully justified,” she says. “They are defending their working conditions. Their suspended colleague must be reinstated and management must sit down and start talking.

“Fine Gael’s ‘solution’ to the dispute is to open up the transport system to competition and we all know where that will lead us: profit for some companies while the reward for workers is lower wages and poorer working conditions

“We must prevent this ‘race to the bottom’ and show solidarity with Dublin Bus workers at Harristown.”

Bus workers’ strike ends

Dublin bus workers recently ended a week-long strike at the Harristown garage in north Dublin. The issues have not been resolved. We spoke to a Dublin Bus worker to hear their side of the story. “Harristown garage is 14 kilometres from the city centre. Dublin Bus wanted drivers to begin and end their shift in the city centre, allowing 45 minutes to get to and from Harristown. This would have added at least an hour, if not longer, unpaid on a daily basis. The company are trying to force change down the workers’ throats, returning us to a Victorian-like age of working conditions. Management tried to break the fundamental principle of trade unionism by isolating sections of the workforce. The leaderships of the two unions involved, NBRU and SIPTU, were not as strong as their members would have liked. The strike ended after workers voted 60 per cent to 40 per cent to return to work. A Labour Court recommendation increased the travelling time by 10 minutes. We face tough times ahead but united and standing together we shall overcome.