So the schools are set for gradual re-opening. ARE WE SURE IT’S SAFE? The government have had nearly a year to improve safety, to ensure proper space and ventilation, to employ more teachers. But have they? Not that I can see. Our communities include the children. They must be safe if the wider community is also to be safe. The worry is YOU CAN TRUST FF/FG/GREENS ON NOTHING!
WAS ENOUGH DAMAGE NOT DONE? How shameful to treat the survivors on the Mother and Baby Homes, as though they don’t matter. The Commission set up to investigate their issues, produced a report that effectively abuses the survivors by disrespecting their testimony and then by erasing it. I spoke in the the Dáil, to an amendment that looks to retrieve the files containing their stories, and to SHOW SOME RESPECT.
Abuse of workers, and of farmers, is widespread in the meat industry. We know this. We also know that with Covid in the mix, this has enormous health implications for the mostly migrant workers, and the communities they live in. And yes, new guidelines have been brought in. But are they enforced? Who’s checking? Are there UNANNOUNCED site visits? I put these and other questions to the Minister in the Dáil
I asked the Tánaiste yesterday what had been done about making schools safe, or even safer. All very well talking about opening up to the schools, but 16-18 year olds are a particularly high-risk group. So, during their closure, have they improved school class rooms? recruited more teachers, improved ventilation? Still waiting.
NOTHING ABOUT US, WITHOUT US. Once retired, workers have no say is what happens with their pensions. Pensions rights can be attacked and undermined in the WRC (Workers Relations Commission), and those who depend on them for their livelihoods can be left powerless. Today I proposed a Bill that would give retired workers rights to have a say in what happens to their pensions, which are in fact deferred wages. Every worker today, could be affected by this In the future
HEALTH WORKERS MAKE SUPERHUMAN SACRIFICES while government Ministers ‘dither’ about doing what’s necessary. And what’s that?: mandatory quarantine for all travellers from abroad, and no exemptions for big business breaking lockdown. I spoke on this in the Dáil yesterday and demanded that they listen to the people.
We can’t make a mockery of being “…all in it together”, not if we want the continued support of the most important people – the workers. If we want to get through this pandemic, then we have to ensure that workers are looked after. Cuts to the wage subsidy scheme, leaving people on €203 a week is shameful. As is the ‘claw-back’ of various tax breaks that were helping people along. The Govt must insist that employers top-up workers wages – it’s not for luxury – it’s to help get through this rotten time.
That children with special needs can go back to school soon is to be welcomed. But it must be safe. That’s only fair to the children themselves, their families and the teachers and school staff, and their families. And in particular, safe for the special needs assistants (SNAs) who do heroic work, the nature of which often leaves them most exposed to catching the virus. Schools must appropriately equipped and managed to ensure optimum safety.
We need a ‘People’s vaccine’, where intellectual property rights are freed up so that any country with a pharmaceutical industry can produce their own vaccines, and not be beholden to big Pharma companies who are are interested only in profits.
300 days of struggle. And the ‘best’ offer the Debenhams workers have received, is money to go back to school, to retrain. Many of these mostly women workers are in their 40’s 50’s and older. So what are they retraining for? The €3 million (between approx. 1200 of them!) would be better used if distributed among the workers who have been so shamefully let down. I spoke on this in Dáil.