“The nine year rule being applied to cars being driven as taxis is forcing full time career taxi drivers out of the trade. Time and again taxi drivers are telling me that they cannot access credit to purchase new cars but have spent what money they have to keep their existing cars road worthy.

“The nine year rule does not apply to drivers whose licence number is below 45,000 which is a bizarre and arbitrary cut off. Anomalous situations can arise now where cars of greater years and greater miles on the clock and are road worthy can remain on the streets than younger cars who happen to be over nine years.

“I call on the Minister for Transport to replace the nine year rule with a fair road worthiness test. This is only one part of a solution of a wider package of necessary and radical reforms to save the taxi trade which me and my United Left Alliance colleagues will be advocating.”

“As has been shown in other instances including Vita Cortex, Game and La Senza among others there is a growing trend of employers leaving workers high and dry with issues of redundancy, outstanding pay and holidays being left unresolved.

“The Socialist Party and United Left Alliance favours recommendations for enhanced redundancies from the Labour Court to be made binding on employers and, although this situation doesn’t arise in HW Wilson, legal immunity for workers who occupy their place of work when the employer attempts to cease operations or make workers redundant when money due to the employees is outstanding.”

* CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE REVERSAL OF “DISASTROUS DECISION”

Socialist Party TD Clare Daly has condemned the decision of the Department of Social Welfare to end the Monday morning Community Welfare service that has operated in Donabate for the past 17 years serving residents from the Donabate/Portrane area.

Deputy Daly said, “This is a huge blow to residents living on the peninsula. At a time when unfortunately more people than ever need to access social welfare services,forcing people who have very little income to travel to Swords is adding insult to injury. The services in Swords are already overburdened, not to mind the expense of having to get there. Let’s face it, operating in the area one day a week was hardly a gold standard service anyway, but at least it was something. To remove it, is a total kick in the teeth for the area.”

“This is a real indictment of government policy and a particular betrayal by Minister Burton and the Labour Party”, Clare Daly said. ” Many people believed that voting labour would protect the most vulnerable. Instead we have even greater inequality than at any time in our history. This is not good enough.Social Welfare services should be locally based so that people can access them. Following on from the closure of the office in Malahide, requiring people to travel to Kilbarrack, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the government has totally abandoned this part of the county. Enough is enough. I believe that residents and the trade unions have to make a stand and save this service and I am strongly urging all to get on to the government TDs and the Minister and get them to reverse this disastrous decision before it is implemented next week.”

Joe Higgins TD and Clare Daly TD offer full support and assistance to the workers of Game

The Game stores suddenly announced their closure on Monday resulting in 121 workers losing their jobs without warning. Many of the workers have provided considerable years of service to the games retailer. The workers have now courageously decided to occupy 13 of the stores across the country.

Joe Higgins TD said "I would like to offer my full support and solidarity to the workers of the Game stores who are occupying 13 stores nationwide. It is remarkable that these workers are courageously following in the footsteps of the La Senza and Vita Cortex workers who themselves were inspired by the global Occupy Movement. This dispute is yet another example of major companies using the recession as an excuse to treat loyal workers with complete and utter disdain. I call on the Games stores to immediately provide these workers with their full redundancy and pay entitlements"

Clare Daly TD added "I would like to congratulate the Game workers for making their stand. The fact that these workers recognised immediately the importance of occupying their stores shows once again just how much the worker's movement has learned in recent times about cut-throat big business. I demand that the Government and in particular the Labour Party intervene into this dispute to ensure that these workers are paid in full what they are due. The trade union movement need to have an immediate response on this issue by putting pressure on the retailer and by also preparing their members for industrial action if it becomes necessary."

“With just under four days left and over 75% non payment there is an emerging narrative in the largely pro establishment media that non payment can be attributed to administrative mess ups on the part of the government.

“While it is true that the Department of the Environment has made blunders the plain facts cannot be escaped that we have seen over the last three months the biggest organised campaign of civil disobedience since the Land League.

“There have been public meetings and protests in every corner of the state and tens of thousands of people have become active in advocating and organising non payment in their street, estate and workplace.

“As part of the effort to diminish the role of the campaign Prime Time last night facilitated Minister Hogan who refused to go head to head with myself on the issue. Instead the role of the campaign was made a foot note when compared to the whys and wherefores of whether or not the tax can be paid in the Post Office.

“By Saturday with the mass demonstration at the FG conference coinciding with the deadline it will be demonstrated that the campaign is the decisive factor on the ground.”

“Residents moored at Lowtown Marina near Naas in County Kildare have without warning been told by Waterways Ireland that they will be asked to quit by the end of this month without any alternative arrangements being offered.

“They are being told that they must do this because the area is to be redeveloped. To date residents paid a company Lowtown Marina Ltd for the right to moor there. It is their home and recognised as such by An Post, the Department of Social Welfare and the HSE.

“Residents have found that representatives from Waterways Ireland are reluctant to properly engage directly with them. This is a very high handed approach which residents I have been in touch with won’t take lying down. Efforts by my own office to talk to officials in Waterways Ireland have proven fruitless. I have therefore tabled a question to the Minister for Arts Heritage and the Gaelteacht which has oversight over Waterways Ireland, asking him to intervene and make a statement on the matter.”

“The strike action being taken tomorrow by truck drivers employed by Stobart in Ballymun is 100% justified. As a company that makes goods deliveries to Tescos they are supposedly party to an ethical guideline whereby they recognise the union to which their employees belong. Indeed in the nearby Donabate depot Stobarts recognise SIPTU.

“The key issue however over which the dispute is taking place is the absence of regular rostering for the workers whereby they are only informed on a day by day basis the precise times of the shifts they work. This makes it impossible for them to make any plans in their private and family lives. There are also real health and safety concerns on the part of the workers given the erratic shifts they end up being asked to work.

“Again like the recognition issue Storbart’s do afford proper rostering to drivers in the Donabate depot. I hope the picket tomorrow, which is the second day of strike action will force the company to settle with the drivers. I deplore their attempt to employ strike breaking labour from Britain on the last day of action.

“I also condemn the granting of an injunction by the courts that seeks to prevent effective picketing of the depot. It is again another example of how the laws and in particular the Industrial Relations Act serves the employer class in this country.”