23 April 2009 Edition

Visteon workers to fight eviction

23 April 2009

WORKERS occupying the west Belfast Visteon car parts factory since the company announced its closure on 31 March have said they will challenge legal attempts to have them evicted from the site. An attempt by Visteon administrators KPMG to have the High Court order their eviction was adjourned until Friday. The workers are demanding the redundancy payments and pensions they were guaranteed by Visteon and motor giant Ford, which it was spun out of in 2000. Free article

Social Welfare Bill 'bad news for most vulnerable'

23 April 2009

SINN FÉIN Dáil Leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD has called for new political leadership and said Fianna Fáil and the Green's are failing at every turn. Speaking from Leinster House on Wednesday ahead of the resumption of the Dáil Ó Caoláin slammed a government Bill on Social Welfare which he said was bad news for the most vulnerable in society. Free article

Fianna Fáil, Greens and Fine Gael double standard on public sector firms

23 April 2009

THERE will be 1,250 jobs lost in Eircom within 18 months while the ESB is set to increase its workforce by 3,700 in a bold strategy that will help retain existing jobs and create new ones in a range of green tech, R&D, construction projects and the roll-out of new technologies to make the company's electricity generation network more efficient. The difference could not be starker between the public sector ESB and the privatised Eircom, now laden with multi-billion euro debts and described as "expensive and undependable" in a recent damning EU Commission report. Free article

Sinn Féin candidates tell Brussels: 'We need a new treaty for a new time'

23 April 2009

SINN FÉIN European elections North-West candidate Pádraig Mac Lochlainn was the key speaker at a Sinn Féin and GUE/NGL-organised conference in Brussels on the Lisbon Treaty. Sinn Féin East candidate Tomás Sharkey also participated as the concluding speaker. The conference was headlined 'The Lisbon Treaty - The real reasons the people say No' and Mac Lochlainn left the packed audience in the European Parliament in no doubt about the depth of opposition in Ireland to Lisbon, not because of any ignorance about the contents and spirit of the treaty but because of very real concerns about democracy, militarisation and public services. Free article

Plea to let H-Block escapee stay in USA

23 April 2009

INN FÉIN Assembly member Raymond McCartney has appealed to the US Director of Homeland Security to overturn the decision of an American court to deport Long Kesh escapee Pól Brennan back to Ireland. Raymond McCartney said: "Pól Brennan has made a new life for himself in the USA. He is married to an American citizen for over 20 years and that is where Pól's life now is. Free article

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ÓSF occupy Equality Commission over Easter Lily ruling

23 April 2009

ACTIVISTS from Ógra Shinn Féin blocked the entrance to the Equality Commission's Office in Shaftesbury Square, Belfast, last week in protest at its recent ruling expressing its "clear view" that the Easter Lily is not an emblem which could be worn in the workplace. The entrance was blocked for an hour, from 10am to 11am, in what the republican youth group describes as "an act of civil disobedience at this disrespectful decision and double standards". Free article

Opposition to cuts for community-based Irish-language groups

23 April 2009

SINN FÉIN Senator Pearse Doherty has called on Foras na Gaeilge not to impose cuts on community-based Irish-language groups. He reiterated a call on the Government not to cut funding for the cross-border institution set up under the Good Friday Agreement, Foras na Gaeilge. And the Donegal-based senator reminded the government that the cross border language body is already operating below the capacity that was envisaged for it. Free article

DUP Bill to enshrine in law 'hierarchy of victims'

23 April 2009

A DUP bid to bring forward legislation to change the inclusive definition of a victim will be resisted by Sinn Féin who will seek to veto it, the party's spokesperson on victims' issues has said. And Sinn Féin will be looking for the SDLP to also oppose the DUP move. Mid-Ulster MLA Francie Molloy said that recent DUP comments have indicated that they are preparing to bring a Bill to the Assembly which will seek to change the current inclusive legal definition of a victim "and enshrine in law a hierarchy of victims. Free article

1916 Easter commemorATions 2009

23 April 2009

WE continue our reports of some of the many commemorations that took place around the country last week to celebrate the 93rd anniversary of the 1916 Rising. Easter speeches by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, Vice-President Mary Lou McDonald, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD and Gerry Kelly MLA can be read in full at www.sinnfein.ie Free article

Shaun Tracey to contest Dublin South by-election

23 April 2009

SINN FÉIN has selected Shaun Tracey to contest the South Dublin by-election. At the same selection convention this week Sinn Féin announced that the party will, for the first time ever, contest all four local election wards in the South Dublin constituency. Free article


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