When government propaganda fails,
political policing kicks in...

The Anti-Austerity Alliance has today condemned the jailing of anti-water meter protestors at the behest of Denis O’Brien’s company GMC Sierra.

Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy said “The jailing of these protestors and the arrests in Tallaght is an attack on the right of communities to protest against the imposition of austerity measures, in this case the water charge and meters, which are being imposed by the government despite the massive opposition to them.

Related Links: Right2Water campaign shocked at jailing of water protesters| Stop poitical policing - Stop the arrests now! | Right to Plunder the Economy, Not Right to Protest | Free the Jobstown 4! - Socialist Party Press Release | Paul Murphy TD arrested on trumped up charges designed to discredit Anti-Water Charges campaign

10% to go in 2016 and then decimation beings in earnest

Just three weeks ago the National Transport Authority (NTA) officially started the tendering for 2016 of initially 10% of Dublin Bus routes and a further 10% of all Bus Eireann routes with most of the routes in Waterford City, and a number of Dublin commuter routes are to be privatised. In the original plan a number of Cork City routes were to go but these will probably happen later. This process has been the culmination of a relentless effort by Fine Gael (FG) in the present government and their predecessors and fellow Neo-Liberal ideologists, Fianna Fáil (FF) in the last government where they have consistently pushed for the break up of both Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann so that it can be handed over to their friends in the private sector to run on a profit basis. The NTA is used as a sort of cloak of respectability to give the impression that they will actually be a regulator with teeth of which we know very few regulators have any teeth, with the banking regulator during the Celtic Tiger coming to mind, plus many other examples and the function of NTA is really for propaganda value to convince the middle class. However this whole scheme is about ideology and is NOT about competition but about privatisation.

Related Links: Prices rises are on the way for public transport users... | Joe Higgins TD seeks topical issue debate tomorrow in Dáil on Bus Eireann strike | Government to fund private bus companies! - Jobs, wages & services under threat | Rivermeade residents wage war to defend the 40B bus