Nuacht na nOibrithe BY STEPHANIE LORD

CIÉ chiefs cut drivers but book executive box

CIÉ EXECUTIVES slashing 600 jobs in Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann have taken a sports stadium corporate box worth €1m per year as part-payment for letting the Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company work over its train line. There are only 10 corporate boxes in the stadium, each reckoned to be worth €1m per year.
Trade unions representing CIÉ workers are understandably outraged at the news. One union rep said:
“There certainly won’t be unemployed people or pensioners or schoolkids who get in there.”
SIPTU says that CIÉ should have taken a cash payment instead of the corporate box deal. CIÉ is currently trading at an estimated loss of €90m.

Taxi protest in Galway

MORE than 400 taxi drivers protested in Galway City this week for a three-year halt to issuing new taxi licences.
There are 1,100 taxis in operation in Galway City; 400 of these were issued with licences in 2008. The drivers said that despite a 48 per cent reduction of applications for new licences last year, deregulation has allowed large numbers of extra taxis on to the roads and drastically reduced incomes.
A representative of the Galway Taxi Association, Enda O’Rourke, said drivers are struggling to make ends meet.
“We have a dysfunctional cabinet running the country and taxi drivers seem to be a long way down the queue in having their plight dealt with.”