FROM THE COMMENTS:
On the 16th of June 2005, "Bloomsday" the 5 were still free, and protesting. That was the morning the Corduff's abandoned breakfast was photographed and we read of how Shell had illegally entered the lands in Rossport to begin illegal work on an illegal pipeline. Mr. Corduff's Bloomsday Brekkie will have gone cold by now. It would not be sexist to suggest Mrs. Corduff will make him another with cuddles on top.

20:00hrs 30/09/2005

We the Rossport 5 would like to thank our neighbours, friends and fellow Irish citizens for the loving support we and our families have received during these 94 traumatic days. In addition we would like to thank the incoming Norwegian government for their respect, support and assistance. We remind SHELL and their Irish government partner that imprisonments have historically and will always fail as a method to secure the agreement of Irish people.

We now call on our supporters to intensify the campaign for the safety of our community and families. We invite all citizens to join with us at a national rally tomorrow (Sat 1st Oct - Ed: Reports and Photos) Saturday, October 1st. The rally will depart from the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm and march to the Dáil. The campaign has now begun in earnest.

Micheál Ó Seighin
Willie Corduff
Brendan Philbin
Vincent McGrath
Philip McGrath
DUBLIN CITY

"That this City Council calls on the Government to refrain from selling the former UCD veterinary College, Dublin 4 and instead allocate it to Dublin City Council with a view to alleviating the housing crisis in the city"

Background Links:
Minister Rattled By Homeless Sleepout
"Bertie, Where's Our Houses?"
Antoinette's Tent
No More Deaths On Our Streets
Heeeereees Terry!

Reports of two distinct actions in Ireland over the weekend of 24-25th Sept. 2005. On the one hand is a self-critical report of an RTS-inspired "Take Back the City" and on the other is a report of anti-war activities that took place around Shannon airport.

From the newswire: Post Match analysis of the "Take Back the City" action in Dublin, Sept. 24th 2005.

" [It] turned into the one thing we promised it would not be - Just Another Street party. Although fun was had and it was a great laugh when things eventually fell together you would have to have had a fair amount of cider inside you before you could convince yourself that it was the "working example of autonomy" that we had promised. To be honest, as one of the people involved in organising, I feel that we fucked up.

From the newswire: A Weekend of Resistance in Limerick and Shannon (or as close as we could get).

The weekend of resistance kicked off on Friday night when a public meeting was held in Halla Ide on Thomas St. in Limerick City. "The meeting entitled 'Shannon And The War On Terror: The War Comes Homes' was addressed by Ploughshares defendant and Catholic Worker, Ciaron O'Reilly, alongside planespotter Tim Hourigan from the Mid-West Alliance Against Military Aggression. The next day, Saturday 24th, there was a demonstration against the Government's policies and against Garda and Irish army complicity in the US military use of Shannon airport."

From the newswire: €170,000 was the price paid for the house that I am living in, in a new development in Portlaoise. I am not happy to have discovered that European Union (Czech Republic) workers are being paid €3 an hour on the site.

Recently my father bought a house at Fairgreen Village (a new post-modern living development) in Portlaoise. A woman that we know, who has been finding it very difficult to secure employment in Portlaoise, was offered a job (by another Eastern European person) cleaning out houses after they had been built, to get them ready for the purchasers to move in. She accepted the job and after the first day told me that she was being paid about €40 for ten hours’ work. This was on day one of the job.

When I informed her that this was illegal and that we have minimum pay wage agreements, she told me that she knows but that is what Eastern European workers are paid, and must be satisfied with it. On the second day she was offered €20 for six hours work – a little more than €3 an hour. The woman refused to work for so little, but her friend stayed on. When the woman said that it was illegal, her would-be contractor (a woman from Latvia I think, who I presume to be sub-contracting from the developers, Owenass Developers) she was asked why is she looking for work since she is seeing an Irishman?

UPDATE: Owenass Developers have met with Mark and have guaranteed that all workers employed directly by them are getting at least minimum wage and that they will make subcontractors sign a declaration to the same effect.

O'Devaney Gardens (ODG) is a local authority housing estate comprised of just under 300 flats, located at the end of the North Circular Road in the west of the inner city. It is a 16-acre site adjacent to the Phoenix Park, close to the Red LUAS line, Heuston Station and within walking distance of the city centre, the 'new' Smithfield and the courts district. At present Dublin City Council (DCC) have put out a tender for redeveloping the entire site. Three private developers are in the running for the awarding of the tender. The plan for development has not been finalised yet, and the tenants of ODG are unsure of what the final outcome of the transformation of their home will look like.

I met up with Lena Jordan, who is a community worker in ODG, and who is also involved with Tenants First, a citywide grassroots organisation of tenants from local authority flat complexes facing redevelopment or regeneration. We talked in the community flat in one of the blocks. While looking around before our conversation, I could see the depressingly familiar site of boarded-up units dotted around the complex. Approximately 10% of the housing stock is currently unoccupied, despite a waiting list for people to be housed. There have been no new allocations since the site was earmarked for redevelopment four years ago; a de-tenanting process which has been mirrored in other cases such as St. Michael's Estate and Dolphin House in the south inner city.