Vote Socialist Party in Local & Euro Elections

In the September issue of the Union Post David Begg, ICTU general secretary and Jack O’Connor, ICTU president, argued against the government’s current economic policies. However, one thing was starkly missing from both of their statements - in fact it was missing from the whole newspaper – there was no mention of a strategy to defeat the government’s attacks on working people.

Castlebeck Ltd and Winterbourne View Hospital are names that will not be familiar in this country. Nor will they be, given the very scant coverage in the Irish media of a shocking report published last week, into grotesque abuse by staff at that hospital of adult residents with intellectual disabilities including autism and severe learning difficulties.

The last months have seen a disgusting campaign of stigmatisation and vilification of prostitutes in Limerick. Local business owners, such as rugby star Jerry Flannery, have taken to local and social media attacking prostitutes in the most vile of language, whilst the Gardai have begun a new policy of taking those selling sex to court to get civil orders banning them from parts of the city associated with on-street prostitution.