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“We’re being evicted”. By Roger Yates This was the text message that I had been dreading – and yet, one I expected sooner or later. It came from a ‘squat’ in north Dublin and the “we” was a female squatter and her rescued greyhound. I grabbed my keys and headed for the place… Rewind to about 6 weeks earlier when some friends and I responded to the eviction call from the Grangegorman site near Smithfield in the centre of Dublin. A long-established squat, replete with café, residential areas, and a community garden, had been invaded by Gardaí, workers who erected dividing fences, and bailiffs. We had attended to offer solidarity and, subsequently, much-loved and needed sandwiches as a stand-off intensified. Although I do not claim the title of squatter for myself, I was involved in a small way in the running of a ‘squat-shop’ in the 1980s in Liverpool which was situated across the road from an anarchist book store called New from Nowhere. Since that time, I had trained as a sociologist, studying and teaching topics such as the sociology of crime and the sociology of poverty. The sociologist in me took an interest in the Grangegorman case, so I trotted along to court to witness events when “persons unknown” were given some 30 days to prepare their case – to get out, effectively. As a de facto participant observer, then, I stood in Dublin’s Four Courts alongside a group of scruffily-dressed squatters as they urgently consulted with their casually-dressed legal representative. How out of place they all seemed among the suits and the uniforms. It struck me that this little gathering, being looked down upon and sniffed at by most present, probably had the most gentle and communal of values of all there. They seems very much out-of-place and, sociologically, that is quite a dangerous place to be. They didn’t seem to stand for money, or power, or private property (obviously) and they were clearly far out of step with the general ethos in that building. I remembered a point that was made in an early criminology seminar I attended at university. The lecturer had us contemplate the vast number of jobs and careers that depend on the constant commission of “crime” in any given society. What damage the “criminal fraternity” could do to the social fabric if they all stopped their unlawful activities. What if no-one “stepped out of line”? It certainly would not be great news for criminal barristers and solicitors. So it was with all this in mind that I agreed to act as observer (and, as it transpired, helper and driver) when a friend and friendly hound set up a squat of their own. The site is a large fenced-off compound comprising a small boarded-up two-bedroomed house, a large grassy area to the front, and a huge derelict factory area to the left. The front door was swinging open, its window broken, so no break-in was necessary. The person who “cased” the joint had been told that the site had been disused for up to twenty years but documents inside the house indicated that a tool hire firm had operated there until 2005. Still, a decade is a long time to stand alone. The house itself was quite cosy but some work was inevitably needed to block a couple of holes and fix a few broken windows, especially the one in the door. As ever with abandoned buildings, large stones lay in some of the rooms, thrown through the windows from the street. In the time that she had, our squatter had organised a small gang of enthusiastic helpers to assist with cleaning, painting, and yard tidying. A passer-by who lived in the area was pleased to hear that the place was soon to be made less of an eyesore. The house and gardens quickly began to look lived in and cared for. However, with no electricity or running water, “arrangements” were necessarily made for the provision of portable heaters, cookers, and toilet-flushing facilities. Then the dread day: “We’re being evicted.” I arrived at the location not knowing what to expect. Gardaí; or a group of heavies; flashing lights; trouble; tears. I found only the latter as the squatter had returned to find that, earlier in the day, some people (“my men” as it turned out) had been inside the house and had systematically smashed and destroyed all the household items there. A wooden bed was broken up and thrown into the garden, clothes and bedding thrown out and deliberately had paint poured onto them. Solar-powered lights not only removed from the building but made unusable. It seemed clear to me that some point had been made, and made with force: try setting up here, on my land, in my property, even though I’m not using it just now, and you’ll suffer as a consequence. Every window in the occupied bedroom had been smashed from within to render it less hospitable. It seemed like a cruel act. As the squat organiser, and a friend who had responded to the eviction alert stood wondering what to do next, the owner – or a man claiming to be the owner – arrived. Shouting and clearly furious, he began to push the women about, issuing sexist and racist slurs along the way. The greyhound wanted to defend her human but was held back as attempts were made to defuse the situation. The man, well-dressed in expensive coat and shoes, insisted that this was his property and that he was living in the house. This was clearly untrue since the house had been empty apart from a broken washing machine and office paperwork when occupied a few weeks earlier. Access to the house involved squeezing through a chained gate, negotiating a wall, and a walk through the overgrown garden area, not something the suited gent seemed likely to be willing to do. When he realised that the people had decided to leave peacefully the man did calm

By Eoin O’ Malley The extraordinary decision of Irish media not to publish brings the concept of parliamentary privilege to the fore again. It has been invoked on a number of occasions in the last few years, sometimes in ridiculous circumstances, sometimes for political grandstanding, but also to allow the Oireachtas to do its job effectively and prevent it from being dominated by the executive. The parliamentary privilege offered members of the Oireachtas in Bunreacht na hÉireann is clear and absolute. I have no idea whether Catherine Murphy’s allegations are true or not (and to be fair nor does she claim to know their truth or otherwise) but her right to make them is unambiguous. Articles 15.13 relates to the rights of members: “The members of each House of the Oireachtas shall, except in case of treason as defined in this Constitution, felony or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest in going to and returning from, and while within the precincts of, either House, and shall not, in respect of any utterance in either House, be amenable to any court or any authority other than the House itself” The first clause means TDs and senators cannot be arrested for offences that wouldn’t normally warrant a prison sentence. It is designed to prevent abuses by executive authorities interfering in the legislative process. If the executive could organise the arrest of members, it could prevent them from voting. So it is there to protect the separation of powers. The ‘immunity from arrest’ privilege dates from the 14th century in England, when an MP was released having had been detained, thus preventing him from attending the House. This privilege from arrest was thus set in English law. The US introduced such a clause to its constitution (Art. 1.6), and we took ours almost verbatim from there. It can still be seen as a bulwark to protect the Oireachtas from executive action. The second clause gives members the right not to be prosecuted for what they say in either chamber, underpinning an important element of democracy: freedom of speech. It is feared that TDs and senators can abuse the privilege to make defamatory statements about people. The absolute nature of privilege puts a duty on TDs not to abuse it. It was used by Mary-Lou McDonald to allege that an investigation into Ansbacher account holders had been curtailed to protect certain former TDs [full disclosure: my father is one of those former TDs named]. Arguably McDonald’s use of privilege designed to deflect media attention from her own party’s travails over the Mairia Cahill affair. She was able to question the head of the Revenue Commissioners shortly after and appeared happy with the reassurances that all these individuals had been fully investigated. No court can sanction a TD for their utterances in the Dáil, just the Houses itself. The Oireachtas has something called ‘exclusive cognisance’, that is the right to govern its own affairs. People who feel they have been defamed can appeal using Standing Order 59. In the current controversy the issue of reporting the Oireachtas proceedings is being questioned. The constitution is clear: “All official reports and publications of the Oireachtas or of either House thereof and utterances made in either House wherever published shall be privileged”. It is excessively cautious legal advice and a genuine fear of being embroiled in expensive legal proceedings that are stopping the mainstream media from reporting. But this is exactly why we have this article; to prevent the powerful from dominating or suppressing public debate. Although privilege is not something we expect to invoke regularly, constitutions often contain clauses that appear redundant until they are called upon to be used in extreme circumstances. The clarity of the language was deliberate and should be relevant to any legal outcome. The people when they ratified it mandated the free reporting of the Oireachtas. In Common Law there are some restrictions on reporting defamatory statements but the most relevant law seems to be the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 which offers a defence “that such extract or abstract was published bona fide and without malice”. Catherine Murphy is a serious politician who cannot be accused of grandstanding or hyperbole. This is clearly an important public matter worthy of fuller investigation. So reporting her words would clearly pass this test. We might think that its abuse in some cases means there should be some restrictions on privilege. Whatever a TD’s motivation, and though at times a ‘public interest’ defence appears questionable, any attempt to curb that right should be resisted. •

By Ronan Burtenshaw The ongoing Dunnes Stores dispute is a potentially critical battle against low-wage, insecure employment in Ireland. June 6th’s march to the company headquarters was a continuation of a battle begun on April 2nd, when 5,000 workers in the retailer went on strike, led by their union Mandate. That strike itself came after a year’s work by the union, which established the Decency for Dunnes Workers campaign on foot of workers’ unhappiness with the nature of their contracts. The campaign has four demands – decent hours, fair pay, job security and recognition of their union. The first of these has become the cause célèbre of the campaign, with Dunnes workers’ flexi-hour contracts drawing comparison with similar, but slightly worse, zero-hour contracts in Britain. These flexi-hour contracts leave many Dunnes workers on a guarantee of only fifteen hours per week. Even though they often get many more than this, the limited guarantee on hours is used by management as a means of control, to disincentivise dissent or manage workers who they want to get rid of out of employment. But for many others flexi-hours also mean a state of permanent underemployment. Hours can also be spread out over an entire week, meaning the capacity to top up wages with welfare payments is severely limited. The family income supplement, requiring a minimum of nineteen hours per week for eligibility, is also out of reach. This gives the company the power to reduce a worker’s earnings from €384 to €144 at a stroke of a pen. There has been significant public sympathy for the Dunnes campaign, on this issue in particular. And, when you explore the numbers, it’s easy to see why. At the beginning of the economic crisis less than one percent of Ireland’s workers classified themselves as underemployed. Today, according to Eurostat, it’s almost eight times that. That makes around 150,000 people. But that isn’t the only area where the campaign chimes with the experience of post-crash Ireland. One of Mandate’s other demands, recently ceded by Dunnes, though it denies it was related to the strike, was for a 3% pay rise for the workers. By making their workforce increasingly precarious, Dunnes has joined the army of low-paying employers in Ireland. The extent of these problems is evident in the most recent OECD data, which placed Ireland second in the developed world for low-paying jobs. Between a fifth and a quarter of all those working in Ireland fail to make two-thirds of the country’s median wage. Given that our median wage is a measly €28,500 per year, this means Ireland has a huge number of people who are working poor. We also have 450,000 part-time workers, a third of whom are involuntarily so. According to Mandate, “there is widespread use of fixed-term and temporary contracts within Dunnes Stores. In many instances, workers initially get 3-month contracts, followed by 6-month contracts. Many are then let go without explanation and replaced by others on similar short-term contracts. Consequently the available hours are being deliberately directed away from established members of staff”. The workers’ demands are for permanent contracts with ‘standard’ probation periods. These, when combined with the banded-hour contracts and pay increases the strike also fought for, would begin to sound like the kind of jobs people could make a living on. In April, at the picket line on North Earl Street, I spoke to three women workers from Dunnes. For two of them, both from Santry in Dublin’s northside, the biggest issue with their precarious status was the inability to get credit. “Banks won’t lend if you’re on these hours”, Faye said, “so you can’t get a house, or a car, or even other loans easily. It’s just like a ceiling you’re living with”. For the other, who didn’t want to be identifiable, the issue was recognition. Not being willing to even meet with the union feels like a snub. But it goes far beyond this: it is about recognition of the contribution the workers made to the company. She felt that the company’s management saw them as “pawns” and hoped that its attitude would change after a strike. Those who were hoping for that outcome were to be bitterly disappointed, however. The day after the strike on Holy Thursday, Dunnes’ management across the country began calling in workers who were on the picket lines to meetings. In these, many had their hours reduced, were moved to parts of stores they had never worked in before, or were told their contracts wouldn’t be renewed. Others, like Karina McGovern, who worked in Dunnes in Northside Shopping Centre, were in effect sacked. A worker in the store for six months, she says she was told at a recent appraisal that she was “a permanent member of staff”, but never signed any document to this end. After taking part in the strike on April 2nd, “because she couldn’t feel any security on the contract she had”, she was called up to her manager’s office the next day at 4:45pm. She wasn’t asked to bring a witness and none was present. At the meeting she was told that she would be let go. “Shocked,” she enquired after a reason. Her manager told her simply, “we can’t give you one”. Devastated by the news of her job loss, McGovern was then told to return to the tills to work out her shift. Her colleagues in the Coolock store, incensed by this, rang their union to tell them. Morale in the store has been at an all-time low ever since. “The most difficult thing,” McGovern said, “is seeing them hire five new people so soon afterwards. That job was how I lived and then it was gone, no reason given. I was made an example of and replaced. That tells all you need to know about how it is for us and why there was a strike”. Tony Malone from Dundalk was a victim of similar treatment. The day after the strike, two days shy

By Mannix Flynn Despite all the negativity that can whirl around any local authority, much of the remit of Dublin City Council (DCC) is exciting.  But it is not popularly associated with the arts of which – if you include Temple Bar – it is the biggest curator in the country. Most of the accolades go to the Arts council and the Department of Arts. DCC does not blow its own trumpet but then again it lacks a cohesive overall policy as well as strategy and vision. It has no brand and therefore it fails to benefit from public goodwill that its arts activities could attract. The apex of DCC’s arts structure is the city arts officer, Ray Yeates. The very name betrays the lack of dynamism. Arts officer is oxymoronic, whatever about Dublin City arts officer. Why not have an Arts “Commissioner” as they have in New York? In DCC the arts are “managed” through all sorts of sub committees, with arts managers and personnel all jockeying for the limelight and constituency favour. Overall responsibility falls in the lap of a Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) but its remit is too broad: Arts, Culture, Recreation and Community. And even worse, and most importantly, there is no suggestion of the balance DCC intends to strike between participative, Community Arts on the one hand and world-class excellence in Art, on the other. These can go hand in hand but usually do not. It is an anonymous rubber-stamp that never challenges, asserts best practice, or holds to account. The SPC’s endeavours are also paralysed by bureaucracy, the imperative to deal with logistical matters such as the minutiae of parks management and an obsession with the commissioning of long-winded reports full of artspeak and jargon. Any area offering a bit of ould art gets designated a cultural cluster, an emerging arts district or a hub. Typical is the Parnell Square cultural quarter and the €60m proposed new Central Library at its heart: it fails entirely in its plan to acknowledge the well-established Hugh Lane gallery. CEO Owen Keegan and other senior members of staff at DCC had no idea of the structures of the companies behind the Parnell Square Cultural Quarter until I did some research and raised the issue with them. Somehow a body called the Parnell Square Foundation (PSF) operating with the philanthropic support of Kennedy Wilson, a major US vulture-capital developer recently come to town, has been charged with the development of the square. It is only recently DCC took possession of the Parnell Square property formerly Coláiste Mhuire owned by the Christian Brothers, which had been handed over to the State as part atonement for their involvement in institutional abuse (Ryan report). It was transferred to DCC by the OPW in a land swap. The plans for Parnell Square notably fail to embrace the State-owned lands surrounding the Rotunda Hospital. A plan by Dublin Civic Trust showing how the space could be opened up as a park to rival Stephen’s Green merely serves to emphasise the limited remit and lack of dynamism of DCC’s approach. I brought a motion calling on DCC to appoint Councillors to the board of the PSF. Strangely, the Chair of the arts SPC and some territorial DCC staff who serve on the PSF wholly opposed my motion but she lost the argument and the Arts SPC overwhelmingly agreed the motion. The Culture, Recreation and Community Section spends around €80m annually (2014), of which €9m goes on the arts, and all of its activities should be scrutinised. The Arts SPC proving deficient in this, I have had to resign. I felt that the chairperson, Mary Freehill, was creating obstacles and personalising issues I raised, presumably at the request of senior staff and management who simply don’t want me anywhere near their boards particularly the Parnell Square foundation. The systemic problems are deep-rooted – underpinned by the usual local-authority problem of the real power residing with management not elected members. Community beanos are not the same as high culture; and it is possible to be interested in both without caring how the grass in city parks is cut. Dublin City Council receives almost a billion euros annually to operate the city. But there is little accountability and Councillors are loth to haul officials and quangos to account because of the dynamic where keeping officials on board may reward Councillors with the fruits of goodwill the next time they need urgent official attention for a constituent. Even when there is evidence of torpor or impropriety DCC moves slothfully. It took over four years years for Dublin City Councillors and Dublin City Council to act properly over the Temple Bar Cultural Trust (TBCT), which we ultimately replaced. Every step of the way certain Councillors saw fit to protect the cosy cartel of TBCT. Why do we continue to spend the guts of €200,000 on the literary ‘Impac’ prize, with its strange worldwide-library-led nominations procedure that seems always to throw up Colum McCann? The Impac company no longer exists so we should reconstitute the prize in the name of DCC.  More generally, why do we not claim credit for  our greatest institutions? The DCC logos in the Hugh Lane gallery are actually painted over. The recent designation as UNESCO city of literature would appear to just have consisted of a whole load of plastic signs being stuck onto buildings. Nothing meaningful has happened and the same familiar celebs and well-thought-of authors and poets have been paraded in and around predictable and over-staged events. Dublin City Council recently put up for sale two unique mews stables on Dawson Street. According to the Dublin Civic Trust they are the only remaining examples of their kind in the city.  They have been in the charge of Dublin City Council for the past 17 years but have descended into dilapidation – reminiscent of Dublin corporation’s total disregard for the Wood Quay Viking site back in the day. All this money slushing around while

By Rachel Mullen Living with a disability costs more than you’d think. There are the human costs of living in a society that disables at every turn. There are significant financial costs. They have been estimated at €207 a week for the average disabled household by Dr John Cullinan of NUI Galway. This is equivalent to 35% of the household’s disposable income. The Department of Health and Children axed the Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant for people with disabilities in 2013. This was because criteria governing the schemes were in breach of the Equal Status Act. They did not have to eliminate the scheme but, we were promised, the issues would be resolved quickly. Two years later, some people with disabilities remain on the scheme, despite its having been found to be discriminatory, and no new scheme has been provided for the many others now precluded. Transport is vital for people with disabilities to get education, employment and local services, and to participate in their communities. A recent report from the Centre for Independent Living highlighted that the cost of buying and running a car was prohibitive for many people with a disability. The cost of insurance was greater, or in some cases not possible. In one testimony a man was told by an insurance company that he was “uninsurable”. In another a man needed €70 to pay for a round trip by taxi to visit his GP as there were no accessible alternatives in his area. The situation is particularly acute in rural areas, where there is a dearth of accessible adequate public transport. The Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant were essential in this regard. They ensure that people do not become trapped in their own homes. These schemes were axed on foot of a case heard in 2008 by the Equality Tribunal and a second case dealt with by the Ombudsman in 2011. The two schemes were found to be in breach of the Equal Status Act 2000 on the ground of age. The criterion was that new applicants for the schemes had to be under the age of sixty-six. Claimants already on the schemes were allowed to continue to receive the payment after they reached the age of sixty-six, provided they continued to satisfy the means test. The Ombudsman’s report noted that the criteria imposed by the Department of Health and Children for applicants seeking the Mobility Allowance, also gave no consideration to the fact that people with intellectual disabilities and/or mental ill health could have restricted mobility as much as people with physical disabilities. The Department could have simply dropped the age restriction. Instead they chose to eradicate the schemes. That was in February 2013. The Department said it had begun a review process on the schemes and, pending its recommendations, the schemes were no longer available. Claimants in receipt of the Mobility Allowance at that time were allowed to remain on the scheme, supposedly temporarily. In June 2013, the review group issued an interim report stating that new statutory provisions would be established and that an inter-departmental group, chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach, would be developing these proposals, including the eligibility criteria. This inter-departmental group would, we were informed, report back by October 2013. Four years since the decision of the Ombudsman and seven years since the decision of the Equality Tribunal this issue has not been resolved. The inter-departmental review process has delivered no decision on the way forward. In the meantime, people who need to access this payment are left trapped and ignored. Last month the media reported an incident on the Sligo to Dublin train. Gerard Gallagher was left stranded on the train when no staff came to assist him to remove his mobility scooter which was in another part of the train. He was eventually found when a cleaner heard him shouting for help. Gerard said; “the power to the train was turned off and I was left in complete darkness…..the doors closed around me…I had no way of contacting anyone. I was completely alone and no one knew where I was”. His words are eerily metaphorical: the isolation being enforced on some disabled people who need this Mobility Allowance and the Motorised Transport Grant. The Minister should do the right thing and ensure people like Gerard are not left isolated in darkness. •

By Mary Murphy We need a new politics in Ireland but do we have the motivation for and capacity to mobilise? Professor Eduardo Silva from Tulane University has analysed the left politics that emerged in responses to crisis in some Latin American states in his study ‘Challenging Neoliberalism in Latin America’. With some caveats, there are useful lessons to be found for Ireland. He emphasises motivation and capacity. Conditions will trigger motivation. There is clear evidence of neo-liberalism causing economic volatility in Ireland. However, despite unresolved high levels of individual and collective indebtedness, unemployment, emigration and increased deprivation,  the crisis simply has not been grave enough to cause a reaction with sufficient force to provoke a change of course. The conditions do not compare to other European countries in crisis, and especially to Latin America. However, crisis is still alive in Irish society and the potential for conflict remains. This is evident in the Anti-Water-Charges Protest movement which echoes some of the approaches found in Latin America, both in terms of the coalitions and the issues. Motivation is stimulated by political exclusion. The  2011 general election in Ireland represented a ‘pencil revolution’. However, there remains a crisis of representation, where citizens mistrust political institutions. Opinion polls highlight the turbulence and volatility in Irish politics. However, the same opinion polls can show a potential for recovery for mainstream national politics committed to meeting fiscal-deficit targets. Silva emphasises the importance of associational power: the formation of groups; and collective power: the formation of new coalitions or alliances, in achieving change. He argues that Latin American elite leaders sought to ensure a fragmentation across the different parts of civil society. This echoes in Ireland. Many trade unions and non-government organisations are sectoral, and organised around specific campaigns to puncture individual austerity measures. They are also conditioned by a tendency to consensus with the state. Government has implemented cutbacks that, while not significant in terms of the percentage of GDP,  are politically significant in encouraging groups to persist in sectoral campaigns while if anything generating resistance to harder and riskier work such as coalition building. There is, however, some evidence of the type of collective mobilisation that happened in Latin Amercia. Linkages across sectors can be found in various grassroots gatherings, Claiming Our Future, We’re Not Leaving, campaigns against precarity, and Right2Water. As to capacity: there is evidence in Ireland of major protest and some very conscious attempts to build collective action. These efforts did not, however, demonstrate the necessary capacity or alliance-building to create the conditions for a significant ‘new politics’. Only the Right2Water campaign, from among various oppositional movements, has achieved critical mass. The emergence of this has been spawned by wider dissatisfaction with austerity and the political elite, according to Rory Hearne. The reasons for this failure include the decline in trade unions and their adoption of a largely defensive position during the crisis, and the degree to which a historically strong civil society now appears dominated by state and market, perhaps a legacy of two decades of social partnership. Meanwhile the power of indigenous Irish pro-neoliberal forces has been augmented by international allies, particularly in the ‘troika’ of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF; and has bared teeth. Silva emphasises the importance of ideological power and the need to frame messages and narratives consciously to broker new linkages of issues and people. There has not been such an effective framing in Irish protests. The issues have not been framed to focus on what might unite a critical mass around a positive vision of life, or to stimulate united action to create a world without the social, democratic, cultural and economic rupture associated with neo-liberalism. Silva advises that such a framing is crucial to brokering the linkages necessary to achieve change. A new politics requires a ‘new policy consensus’. In Latin America this reaffirmed: the legitimacy of state involvement in the economy and society; an ecologically driven model of development; less reliance on and greater regulation of markets; less reliance on foreign investment; and more social investment in welfare, health, education, and pensions as well as a focus on inclusion and equality of status for all, including women. Such an Irish narrative could create new solidarities based on an understanding of our collective interdependence. This new politics could drive more, and more effective, protest, and vision. •