32 charged over Dublin protests

18 people are to face trial by jury in connection to a protest in Jobstown, Tallaght in November 2014

18 people are to face trial by jury in connection to a protest in Jobstown, Tallaght in November 2014

Eighteen people including Anti-Austerity Alliance TD, Paul Murphy, face trial by jury at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in relation to a protest a year ago involving Tánaiste, Joan Burton and her special advisor.

Sixteen of those brought before Dublin District Court today, including Mr Murphy, were charged with falsely imprisoning Ms Burton and Karen O'Connell at Fortunestown Road on 15 November 2014.  Two others were charged with violent disorder.

Solicitor Cahir O'Higgins, who represented a number of the accused claimed the height of the State's case was accusing people of the unlawful imprisonment of a vehicle, not a person.

All eighteen are due back in court again on 14 December when they are expected to be served with the book of evidence.

In a separate case, eleven people, including United Left Alliance TD, Joan Collins, were before the court charged with public order offences in relation to a protest against water charges and water meter installation in Harold's Cross in Dublin on 20 April this year.

They will be before the court again on 30 November. Mr O'Higgins who was also representing some of the accused in that case, told the court his clients had been involved in a peaceful and ordinary protest, like dozens of other protests. 

He said it was their case that this protest had been "unusually policed".  He said he is looking for any correspondence between Irish Water or GMC/Sierra and  An Garda Síochána.  The prosecution denies any such correspondence exists.

Mr O'Higgins said this was an unusual case and it was surprising all protest cases had been thrown in together.

He said it threw up issues about the right to protest and where the boundaries of the right to protest lay.   Because of the public interest, the length of the case and the complexity of the case, he asked the judge to allow legal aid to his clients for a solicitor and a barrister. 

The request was granted by Judge Michael Walsh.

In a further case, three people were charged with using threatening, insulting or abusive language in relation to an incident in January this year involving President Michael D Higgins.

He said the case raised important issues in relation to the right to freedom of expression. He also said there would be an issue as to whether or not President Higgins could be summonsed to court to give evidence in the case.

One of the three did not appear in court. That case has also been adjourned to 30 November.

Derek Byrne was also charged this morning with using threatening insulting or abusive language at a protest outside the Dáil on Kildare Street in Dublin in July this year. That matter was adjourned to January next year.

In all 32 people were called before the court in relation to the protests, five women and 27 men.

There were large protests outside the court before and after the case. 

Several hundred supporters of the accused men and women gathered outside the Criminal Courts of Justice from 1pm onwards.

After the court case finished, Paul Murphy, Joan Collins and others addressed the crowd who were shouting slogans including "support the right to demonstrate", and "no way, we won't pay."

A number of vans, said by protesters to be carrying equipment for water meter installation were blocked on Parkgate street for a time.


Right2Water/Right2Change policy and fiscal frameworks

NoelFliuch

I’ve just read both the policies document and the fiscal document for the fourth or fifth time.

Fiscal Policies

The fiscal document is totally aspirational. They continually go on about rejecting EU fiscal policies yet constantly go back to saying they’ll go to the EU and other EU and eurozone countries asking for their support – which I don’t see them getting – so effectively they’ve given themselves a ‘get out of jail free’ card for every single fiscal policy when it falls on its face.

That in turn means many of their other policies will fail because they hinge on the fiscal policies being enacted.

One huge flaw in their fiscal policy is the fact that it’s based on current government figures which we all know are politically skewed, deliberately misleading, and fundamentally undermined by other financial authorities – so that’s another ‘get out of jail free’ card for them (there was nothing left in the bank went we went to get the money etc).

Other Policies

I have to say the policy document is also full of aspirations many of which hinge totally on the fiscal document.

Democratic changes would be welcome but the changes put forward are quite superficial (tackling corruption, media ownership etc.) I would predict they’ll make a big fanfare out of those superficial changes when what we really need is wholesale change like full participatory democracy (which is not mentioned in their policy document).

We also need a right of recall by the people of any Dáil deputy, senator and judge, and that also isn’t mentioned in their policy document.

There also isn’t anything solid about how they might encourage more people to engage and participate in our current form of democracy.

As for media ownership, well there are strict EU regulations surrounding this and any proposals or changes in this arena will also have to pass mustard with Brussels and since we’ll be kicking them in the nads financially they won’t be too keen giving us any slack.

Bank Bailout

One huge flaw in all these policies is that there is no commitment to go back in any way on what most of us consider to be Not Our Debt.

There is nothing in either document that declares the bank bailout to be unjust and unacceptable. There is nothing said about the ongoing debt that this country has been saddled with, no statement saying they will declare this debt to be odious.

…….

Overall both documents are purely aspirational (almost utopian) and one hinges (and falls) on the other while the other hinges (and falls) on serious changes within the eurozone which aren’t going to happen either for a long time (or never) or else not without serious concessions and compromises from us (like surrendering more sovereignty and/or losing our neutrality etc).

I would say these frameworks are more skeletons that are seriously in need of having some meat on them.

Irish Water Ltd

What Right2Change actually say about IWL is that they’ll abolish it within 100 days but then they say they’ll set up another version of IWL like a Bord Uisce Eireann kinda thing but that begs several questions:

What about all the current employees of IWL? Redundancy packages, pensions etc.
What about the contracts IWL has already entered into?
Have they costed dismantling IWL?
Where will they get the money to fund the dismantling of IWL?
Do they have a costing for setting up an alternative?
How will they fund that?

None of these questions are asked so none are answered instead there are more aspirations but what will actually happen is that we will have hand-wringing and We Are Where We Are / There Is No Alternative / the previous government…etc.

While Right2Change are not formally fielding any candidates for the next general election they are acting as an umbrella organization looking for independents and parties to sign up to their policy frameworks – this neatly bypasses the formality of actually setting up a political party of their own.

It must also be pointed out that most of our unions were silent after the last financial meltdown and were mute during the bank bailout and subsequent surrender of sovereignty to the Troika while unions in Greece, Italy, France and Spain were mobilising mass rallies to protest the bailouts.

Now we see a time of discontent among many state and semi-state workers over the losses they incurred due to ‘reforms’ forced upon us by the Troika and those same unions are being called upon to stand up for their members (the same unions that told the same workers that they had to accept the Troika reforms) so we’re looking at multiple disputes escalating into strike action.

Sinn Fein

Fliuch has never supported or endorsed any political party and this remains our policy. With the recent news of a voting pact being set up within Right2Change groups anyone subscribing to Right2Water are by default supporting Sinn Fein – that’s your choice – we will continue to promote non-aligned independents as the best choice for now.

Conclusion

All of this combined seems completely self-serving and dishonest on many levels and any local anti-water tax group that has signed up to Right2Water (and by default Right2Change) really needs to think about where they were, where they are now, and where they want to be, as opposed to where Right2Water wants you to be..

Noel for Fliuch.

Source: http://www.fliuch.org/right2waterright2change-policy-and-fiscal-frameworks/

Canada is the most sued country in the ‘developed’ world, and that should sound alarm bells in the EU

Maude Barlow
30 October 2015
Trade
 

Several weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of people across Europe and the UK marched to protest the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a massive planned new trade deal between Europe and the US. They were rightly sounding the alarm as TTIP will greatly reduce the ability of local governments to spend public money for local development, impose new limits on the right of governments of all levels to regulate on behalf of their citizens and environment, endanger public services and jeopardize Europe’s higher standards on labour, food safety and social security.

TTIP also includes Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a provision that will allow American corporations to sue European governments for laws and practices that threaten their bottom line. There are now over 3,200 bilateral ISDS agreements in the world, and foreign corporations have used them to sue governments over health, safety and environmental laws.

Cigarette maker Phillip Morris used ISDS to challenge Australian rules around cigarette packaging intended to promote public health. A Swedish company, Vattenfall, is suing Germany for a reported €4.7 billion relating to Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power. ISDS is profoundly anti-democratic and threatens the human rights of people everywhere.

But people in the UK and Europe should be paying attention to another deal that has had way less attention. CETA – the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada – is equally disturbing and way further along in the process. I’m coming on a speaking tour of the UK to share a powerful story of Canada’s experience that is relevant for two reasons.

The first is that we Canadians have lived with ISDS for twenty years. It was first included in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, and has been used extensively by the corporations of North America to get their way.  As a result of NAFTA, Canada is now the most sued developed country in the world.

There have been 35 corporate ISDS challenges against Canada and we have already paid out over €135 million to American corporations. Foreign investors are seeking another €1.75 billion from the Canadian government in new cases and Canada has already spent over €45 million defending itself from NAFTA challenges. Two-thirds of the claims involve challenges to environmental protection or management of our own resources, issues that should reflect the democratic will of the people of Canada.

No surprise, the US has never lost a NAFTA case. In this game, the big guys generally win.    

The other reason people of the UK and Europe should care about Canada is that the CETA is a “done deal, ” meaning that, even though it has not been ratified politically, the negotiations are finished and they contain ISDS provisions. CETA could act as a “back room” for American corporations whether TTIP is adopted or not.

There is a great deal of opposition to ISDS in TTIP, so much so, that many think either ISDS will have to come out of the deal or be radically modified, or it will be defeated in Europe. Already, the European Commission has proposed ISDS “reforms” to TTIP that would set up a new European Investment Court that would be more transparent and accountable, although still unacceptable to most of us.

But all an American agriculture, energy or drug giant would have to do to take full advantage of ISDS is use its existing subsidiary in Canada, or set one up, and sue European governments through CETA. American corporations would have as much access to challenge Europe’s higher standards under CETA as if TTIP with a full ISDS had been signed. 

There’s very little in these ‘trade’ deals that is actually about trade. They’re much more about handing over frightening new rights to corporations that fundamentally challenge the way that governments legislate on behalf of ordinary people. It’s no wonder that a UN expert on human rights recently referred to ISDS as “an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination, which are founding principles of the United Nations.”

People in the UK should learn from our experiences in Canada and understand that this new generation of trade deals poses a terrible threat to health of their people, the resilience of their communities, the fate of their public services, and the protection of their natural resources.

Maude Barlow is coming to the UK on a speaker tour called ‘Stop the Transatlantic Trade Deals’ alongside Yash Tandon and Nick Dearden. From 1-9 November they will be appearing inDundee, Leeds, Manchester, London, Oxford, Cardiff and Dublin. See here for more info.

Source: www.globaljustice.org.uk