In 1990 the Industrial Relations Act was passed in this country which brough many of the Thatcherite reforms of trade unions onto our shores. Along with Social Partnership, this has been described by many as a major loss by the trade union movement. The IWU classified it as one of those laws : "designed in democratic bourgeois societies like ours to keep the working class in their place". So when Trade Unionists discuss via political articles how to fight Irish Ferries type attacks on workers, the question of the law must come into it.

Of course, we have to remember that other people have been fighting our battles for us already this year.

Our unions have the power to shut down Irish Ferries until they agree to employ all of their staff on trade union rates of pay. However, doing this would bring our unions into conflict with the law. The Industrial Relations Act makes solidarity action unlawful.

This is a big step to take but the choice is simple: break the law or allow the bosses to break our unions. If we let Irish Ferries get away with it, other bosses will, naturally, copy them. Many more jobs will be in danger.

On the other hand, if our unions give Irish Ferries management a bloody nose, other bosses will learn a lesson and back off.

UPDATE: Nov 24thworkers barricade themselves into engine room as company thugs attempt to bring in strike-breaking replacement crew.

Meeting with the Irish Rangers - the elite wing of the Irish army, discussed in strange detail here on the newswire - the Minister with the 'tache promised to protect Ireland from that free speech disease.

Willie O'Dea pointed a gun at camera and said (around the same period of time to an Indo journalist) "You can't have absolute freedom of speech. There has to be some balance ...". He told "radicals like" Mr Choudary that pointing out that Ireland might be a potential target for a terror attack or implying that Ireland was anything but neutral and holy or saying the massive US military use of Shannon Airport was anything unusual was (like limerick and his photo perhaps) "beyond the pale".

Meanwhile the hiberno-blogosphere choked up in amusement with a plethora of images of Minister O'Dea as Charles Bronson, Groucho Marxman and Dirty Harry as everyone tried to nail down the perfect caption. It just goes to show that Fianna Fail in its headlong upward endless quest for the supreme heights of the grotesque, bizarre etc. is always guaranteed to consistently supply Ireland and the World with a unique twist on the political cowboy genre.

The Indy Newswire coughed up a Taxi Driver classic. Something special in the eyes? Or just another Limerick bhoy with oily mitts sexed up on easy money and the power of the gun?

"Listen . Here's a man who would not take it anymore. Who would not let...Listen you fuckers, you screwheads. Here's a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit, here is someone who stood up. HERE IS"

PREVIOUSLY ON INDYMEDIA IRELAND
The Where's Willy Competition

Once the Political and Communications Director of the Labour Party and now Chief Executive Officer of Barnardos in Ireland, Fergus Finlay spoke with a regular contributor on disability issues to Indymedia about the current situation with regard to the rights of people with disability in Ireland.

Extract: Finlay also agrees that part of the problem is that too many people are docile about arguing their corner or protesting about the situation. “People are still affected by shyness and shame about having disability in their families. A lifetime of being endlessly patronised and talked down to has resulted in a constituency of people who have ended up absorbing the attitudes which they meet and applying them to themselves. I once made the observation to the Irish Association of Psychiatrists that there is something in their training which causes them all to think that parents of people with disability are probably ‘not all there’, either. While it’s not the case that there are no services – there is some provision, of course, and some people do manage to find adequate services - but the bottom line in all of this is that families and individuals are mostly like square pegs trying to find the occasional square hole into which they can fit.”

He continues “there is an antediluvian perception of disability based on the medical model - provision is not based on the principle of responding to the need – the culture with disability is still a culture of charity. It does not start with the idea that there is a right and of course there is the common experience of a lot of people which is that if you raise your voice you will be threatened - look at the treatment meted out to the O'Hara family, for instance.”

Hundreds demonstrated today against Fine Gael’s worrying proposal to make Irish language education optional, and no longer compulsory.

The demonstration was kicked off at the main gates of Trinity College at lunchtime, and so was witnessed by large crowds of sympathetic spectators as well as participants.

Hundreds marched to the headquarters of Fine Gael, to shouts of “Fine Bearla.” When the group arrived at Fine Gael headquarters, party leader Enda Kenny emerged to address the crowd. He received jeers from the crowd when he told them that removing the Irish language requirement would actually help the language. In an act of dispcicable cowardice he then fled from the crowd when someone from Ogra na Gael got up to speak.

Some observers such as "Fear Bocht" are unimpressed:

There is nothing intrinsically progressive about Irish; in fact the cultural snobs and elitists have often used it to look down on the working class. Nor has it anything especailly republican about it; I'll think you'll find Wolfe Tone did not have a word. For those who want to speak it, learn it and teach it, all facilities should be given but compulsion did not and will not work.

Extract: An idea or rather an image bubbles up in my head of a human being held in one of the prisons for captives in the “War on Terror” - their sense of self slowly disintegrating under the pressure of uncertainity, torture and fear. I try to articulate what I think about Guantanamo. My heart is pounding and I am stabbing the air with my finger.

Meanwhile the same lackey is continuing to repeat his demand that we condemn Republican violence. This is absurd. I had expected grubby debating society tricks, oily pragmatism and weasel words but I wasn’t ready for such lazy contempt and a sheer inability or unwillingmess to argue for the merits of his decision on refuelling at Shannon.

Unexpectedly one of the retinue makes a coherent point about the plight of the Kurds and I begin talking to him. Bertie is still looking up and down the street though and his prayers are answered in the form of a beetroot faced man with a bristling moustache, a stocky little black dog and more than a couple of jars inside him.