Richard Boyd Barrett TD

In a statement Richard Boyd Barrett TD, for People Before Profit/ULA and one of the organisers of last weekend’s 4000 strong protest in Avondale, Co Wicklow, against the government’s planned sale of the harvesting rights of Ireland’s public forest estate has said “the government are crumbling in the face of people power and public outrage.”

Deputy Boyd Barrett’s statement came in the aftermath of today’s comments by Minister for Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabitte, that the sale of Coilte’s harvesting rights was looking increasingly “unlikely.”

Deputy Boyd Barrett said also that the protests against the privatisation of Coilte would continue until there was a clear government commitment that they had abandoned their plan to sell Coilte’s harvesting rights and that “rumours, whispers, and comments by individual ministers were not a statement of government policy and that clarity and a radical change of government forestry policy was needed.”

Richard Boyd Barrett said: “It is no coincidence that Pat Rabitte made these comments just two days after 4000 people demonstrated to express their outrage at the plan to sell off the harvesting rights to our public forest estate. This is proof that protest and people power is working – it is proof that it is possible to challenge the juggernaut of this government’s disastrous austerity policy.”

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Richard Boyd Barrett TD is meeting the Troika between 3 and 4pm this afternoon along with a delegation from the Technical Group. He will be questioning them on a number of controversial key areas within the so called stability programme, particularly the current conflicts around Croke Park, the property tax and the timetables for the sale of state assets including Coillte and the introduction of water charges.

“Richard Boyd Barrett TD said there are whole numbers of areas within the Troika’s austerity programme which are now facing serious resistance from ordinary citizens of this country leaving questions over gross unfairness of these measures but also as to whether the government and the Troika are determined to go ahead with these measures and whether they are open to discussions on alternatives”

“The representatives of public sector workers and others have made it clear that there are other alternatives to further attacks on low and middle income workers such as increased corporation taxes, stimulus measures and higher taxes on the wealthy to deal with Ireland’s economic crisis”.

“I will be challenging the Troika as to whether they are willing to consider such alternatives, given recent statements by senior figures in the IMF that austerity is not working.

I will also be making specific points about cruel property tax and a fairer system of tax that targets high earners in society.

In relation to the sale of state assets and in particular plans to sell the harvesting rights of Coillte, I will be asking the Troika whether the government is required to go ahead with this commitment or whether it has the option not to privatise our forests, if as the government has stated recently they believe this is not good value for the Irish tax-payer. I will be pointing out to them that there is fierce opposition to this disgraceful proposal to sell the harvesting rights to Irish forests.

Given Eamon Gilmore’s recent announcement that the plan to impose water charges is being pushed back from January I will be asking if the Troika has agreed to this and what new timetable is for the introduction of water charges.

Finally, I doubt we will get straight answers from the troika but it will be interesting to see whether they are singing off the same hymn sheet as the government”.

During Minister’s Questions today, People Before Profit TD, Richard Boyd Barrett, challenged Minister for Social Protection, that the JobBridge Scheme is being abused by private companies.

In February, Oxygen, who run the recycling plant in Ballyogan on behalf of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council took on a number of staff via the JobBridge scheme. These staff were trained by workers who then lost their jobs.

JobBridge is the government’s National Internship Scheme that is intended to provide work experience for those on Social Welfare payments as a way to get people back to work.

The intern receives €50 from the state on top of their SW payment and the “host company” is obliged to train and upskill the intern but is not liable to pay any money to the intern.

 The rules for Job Bridge state clearly that:

•  The host organisation currently may not have vacancies in the area of activity in which the internship is offered.
• The internship will not be provided to displace an employee. The scheme administrator reserves the right to review cases where it is reported that this is the case.

 On 31 March 4 workers lost their jobs at Ballyogan Depot. These workers were employed by A&S Finnegan, a sub-contractor for Oxygen.

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