More Irish household property tax protests on the way
Two of the four people injured in disturbances at South Dublin County Council last night did not turn up for work today, the council said.
Five protesters were arrested last night after a group disrupted a meeting of South Dublin County Council by forcing its way into the council chamber in Tallaght. Demonstrations were also held at meetings of Fingal, Galway and Kilkenny councils, but no arrests were made in those cases.
Senior staff who spent much of yesterday with gardai at the council offices in Tallaght said three employees of a Security Company G4S had been injured during the protest which was organised by the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes.
A fourth person, a female member of staff who was caught up in the protest when she opened a foyer door, was also said to be badly shaken and upset by the ordeal.
According to the council’s director of corporate services Philip Murphy, all three security men received blows during scuffles with the protesters. He said one man had a severely swollen face and complained of being hit by a protester’s fist.
Another security man received a torn shirt and bruising while a third complained of kicks to his knee. All three were treated for their injuries on site by council staff. Mr Murphy said two of the security staff were unable to come to work today due to their injuries.
Mr Murphy said council staff had expected a visit from the Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes and members of the group had been met in the foyer, and offered accommodation in the public gallery. However when the female member of staff came out of the council chamber and into the foyer, Mr Murphy said the group stormed the door. This door was open, but was just the first of two doors, the second of which was damaged in the charge, he said.
Mr Murphy said the second door was electro-magnetically locked and was burst open by the protesters. He said after the meeting the lock was no longer working.
It is understood the gardai, who took statements from staff yesterday also took possession of closed circuit television footage.
The Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes said it plans to hold further demonstrations to campaign against the property tax.
Socialist MEP Paul Murphy, who was arrested yesterday, said “any political party or institution involved with the property tax” is a target.
He was “surprised” members of the group were arrested and accused the gardaí of being “very heavy-handed”. One of the protestors was hospitalised after the demonstration, he said.
This morning Fine Gael South Dublin councillor Colm Brophy dismissed the demonstration as “an act of violent protest” which amounted to “a piece of political grandstanding” designed to get Paul Murphy re-elected.
Protesters forced their way into the chamber and started “jumping up and down and shouting”, Cllr Brophy told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland . Gardaí had “no choice” but to make arrests, he said.
Some 1,100 Irish elderly people awaiting places in nursing homes
More than 1,100 vulnerable elderly Irish people have been forced onto unofficial nursing home waiting lists in just two years, due to the HSE’s chronic funding problems.
Figures revealed in response to Health Minister James Reilly’s plan to officially introduce public waiting lists systems this year show that, in reality, the policy is already in operation.
According to the HSE, since the Fair Deal nursing home scheme was created in Oct 2009 to help reduce the cost of care for pensioners, 22,957 older people have been placed in public facilities.
However, since Dec 2011 — when the new scheme began to be impacted by wider health service funding issues — the number of people told they must wait for rooms until existing spots are “vacated” has surged.
At the end of 2011, a total of 583 people were waiting an average of one month for the vital care, with the figure increasing to 656 by the end of 2012.
The rates mean that, in just two years, 1,139 people have been told they cannot access public nursing home care.
However, these delays are not counted as official waiting lists. They are instead described as “placement list” applications.
Officially, it means the delays were not waiting lists until Dr Reilly ann-ounced the change in category earlier this month.
“Applicants are put on the ‘placement list’ when their application has been successfully processed to completion — that is, when they have been found to clinically require long-term residential care and the financial assessment has determined the amount the applicant must pay,” said a HSE spokeswoman.
“Funding approval is granted, within the resources available, before the individual can take their place.”
The decision to make nursing home waiting lists official policy was confirmed in the HSE’s national service plan for this year, released in January.
The document said the situation could not be avoided due to ongoing financial pressures on the HSE.
Ryanair’s bid for Aer-Lingus blocked by EU Commission
Ryanair says it is not getting a ‘fair hearing’ by the European Commission.
Ryanair has been notified that the EU Commission intends to reject the low-cost carrier’s attempt to takeover Aer Lingus.
The airline says it will appeal the decision in the European courts, as it is “being held to a much higher standard than any other EU airline” and described the decision as political and unfair. However the European Commission said a final decision had not yet been taken.
Ryanair added it had “met every competition concern raised” by the EU during the process and provided “irrevocable commitments from not one, but two, upfront buyers to eliminate all competitive overlaps” between the airlines, as IAG and Flybe stepped in to take over a number of routes.
The airline’s head of communications Robin Kiely said, “It appears clear from this morning’s meeting, that no matter what remedies Ryanair offered, we were not going to get a fair hearing and were going to be prohibited regardless of competition rules.”
Ryanair, which has indicated that this third bid for Aer Lingus would be its last, said it would launch an appeal in European courts against the decision by the Commission, which acts as the European Union’s competition authority.
“This decision is clearly a political one to meet the narrow, vested interests of the Irish government and is not based on competition law,” Keily added.
The government, which has said it is against the merger, declined to comment, as did an Aer Lingus spokesman.
Aer Lingus’s shares were 5 per cent lower at €1.27 in lunchtime trade, when Ryanair’s shares were unchanged at €5.67.
Ryanair, Europe’s biggest budget airline, was told last month that it had one last chance to submit measures to ensure the proposed €694 million merger did not reduce competition.
Ryanair’s latest offer to the Commission included ceding 43 routes to Flybe and hand to British Airways the routes Aer Lingus operates from London’s Gatwick Airport.
The Commission blocked Ryanair’s first attempt to take over Aer Lingus in 2007 and Ryanair dropped its second in 2009.
“The Commission will take a decision in this case at the end of February or the beginning of March,” said a spokesman for EU competition chief Joaquin Almunia.
Ballyshannon House fire earmarked for a Traveller family of 13 believed to be arson
Gardaí believe arsonists were behind an attack which has gutted a house into which a family of 13 Travellers was preparing to move to.
The family was allocated the house by Donegal County Council despite public protests that they were being placed among a community of settled, mainly retired, people.
Three weeks ago councillors criticised the plan by council officials to place the family in a five-bedroom house on a hilltop at Parkhill, less than two kilometres outside Ballyshannon.
Donegal Fianna Fáil councillor Seán McEniff denied he was racist or bigoted when he said Travellers should live in their own communities away from settled people.
Spike Island: Ballyshannon Fine Gael councillor Eugene Dolan, a former mayor of the town, said Travellers could be sent to Spike Island for all he cared.
Both condemned the attack which occurred at 3am. Nobody was inside at the time.
Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty yesterday accused the councillors who criticised the decision to place the Traveller family in the home of “lacking political” leadership in their comments. He said their language could be considered as incitement to hatred.
Gardaí are investigating a complaint from the Donegal Travellers Project that the councillors incited hatred.
Independent TD, Thomas Pringle said it “would have been better for the local councillors to have taken a constructive approach, working towards ensuring that the family received all the support they required and work with the community to make sure that there was a smooth transition for the family.”
Gardaí carried out door-to-door inquiries in the area. Forensic examiners were warned by fire chiefs not to enter the burned building as it was structurally dangerous.
Locals said if the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction the fire could have spread to a neighbouring house.
Criminal behaviour: Mr McEniff said yesterday: “I stand by my view that Travellers should live in their own communities. Of course I don’t condone the fire attack. I did not in any way give any succour to any type of criminal behaviour.”
Mr Dolan said: “The fire attack should never have happened. I am totally opposed to anything like that.”
Ballyshannon and Bundoran fire services responded to the alert.
Donegal Council stated that due to the extent of the fire, it was not possible for teams to search the house and there were no occupants inside.
“It is confirmed that the house was very extensively damaged in the fire. The scene has now been handed over to the gardaí.”
Donegal County Council bought the house for €230,000 to allocate it for social housing. At the height of the boom houses on the same road were reckoned to be worth more than €400,000.
NUI College Galway secures funding to continue software design conversion course
NUI Galway secures funding to continue software design conversion course
NUI Galway, along with software industry partners, has secured funding from the Higher Education Authority to continue running its one-year higher diploma in software design and development, a conversion course targeted at graduates with limited or no IT experience.
The conversion course, which started in 2012, is targeted at helping to increase the supply of skilled graduates to work in the software industry in Ireland.
During the course, students will also get industry work experience to help start their careers in the software development field.
According to NUI Galway, those who enroll on the course will get a solid foundation in key software design knowledge, a choice of software architecture specialisation in either .NET or Java Enterprise, and a work placement with an industry partner in the Galway region.
The industry partners for the course will include Avaya, Ericsson, the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), Hewlett-Packard, Storm Technologies, The Marine Institute, Solano Tech NetFort Technologies, SourceDogg, Schneider Electric, Cisco and IBM.
Course director Dr Enda Howley said the higher diploma is an opportunity for graduates from fields such as engineering, science and business to invest one year in further education.
“Through placement experience with our industry partners, they will have an excellent prospect for recruitment as software developers in Ireland’s high-tech ICT sector,” he said.
Man dies in Drumfin Sligo 2 car road accident
A man in his 20s has died in a road crash in Co. Sligo. The two vehicle collision happened on the N4 near Drumfin at around 8.30pm last night.
The man died when the car he was driving collided with another.
He was taken to Sligo General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The passenger in his car and both the driver and passenger in the second car were all taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The road is closed this morning and gardai in Sligo are appealing for witnesses.
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