Sinn Féin demands abolition of road tolls tax
Concluding Sinn Féin’s Week of Action on Transport, Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan said, “The city’s traffic chaos and gridlock faced each day by commuters is a direct result of government refusing to invest in a publicly funded fully integrated public transport system.

Sinn Féin is calling for an extra 500 buses for Dublin Bus to be allocated to areas we have identified as under-serviced. We also wish to see the abolishment of road tolls as they are yet another unjust tax on people travelling to and from work and cause major traffic gridlock on our roads.”

People Before Profit Candidate calls for increase in tax on profits
At a time when the cost of living is shooting through the roof, workers’ wages are being restrained below the rate of inflation, children are squashed into overcrowded classes, and the A & E crisis continues, the banks are creaming off unprecedented profits. Rory Hearne, candidate for People Before Profit Alliance, Dublin South East stated. “In local communities local council services are completely inadequate, developers are being facilitated with planning decisions and ordinary people are left out. I challenge the government to put ordinary people first over the needs of the wealthy banks and increase corporation tax rate on banks’ profits to at least 25%.”

Creighton condemns poor planning
At a public meeting organised by FG Councillor Lucinda Creighton recently, residents of Ballsbridge gave an emphatic ‘thumbs down’ to the proposed Local Area Plan for Ballsbridge. Lucinda commented at the meeting: “This Local Area Plan for Ballsbridge had the potential to offer an imaginative framework for a new model of planning in Dublin City. Instead, we have been presented with a plan to rezone Ballsbridge to facilitate one developer. It shows that the developer-led planning process which resulted in the Mahon tribunal has not gone away. Poor planning in Dublin is a cancer that has not gone away.”

Environment must be priority for our survival says Councillor Doolan
Speaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, Dublin’s Environmental Spokesperson Cllr. Daithí Doolan said: “One clear example of what must be done is here in Dublin. The government have plans to build a superdump in north county Dublin and an incinerator here on Dublin’s southside. Both unneeded, both imposed, both unsustainable. But we also have unique opportunity to rectify the problem with the proposed development of the Poolbeg Peninsula.

With the population of Dublin growing by a massive 15% to reach 1.7m over the next ten years land must be developed in a sustainable manner to meet the needs for homes and infrastructure. The Poolbeg Peninsula offer a unique opportunity to build a community that is of the highest environmental standard and with infrastructure integrated into the planning process.”

People Before Profit condemn the closing of St Luke’s
Rory Hearne of the People Before Profit Alliance says that many from Sandymount, Irishtown and Ringsend and beyond have been patients in St Luke’s cancer Hospital, Rathgar or have had friends or relatives who have attended the hospital. The news that the Government has decided to shut St Luke’s and transfer its radiotherapy services to St James’s and Beaumont by 2011 is being greeted with shock, sadness and anger.

More than 20,000 patients are treated annually in St Luke’s. Patients explain that the wonderful therapeutic surroundings help cancer sufferers. It won the top award in the audit of acute hospitals for spring 2006 while St James’s, where they plan to transfer it to, is overcrowded with operations cancelled very recently.

Rory Hearne says: “St Luke’s is being transferred as part of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) which means big developers and speculators could make millions from the 18.5 acre St Luke’s site while radiotherapy services could be privatised in St James’s.”

Rory Hearne believes that St Luke’s is the centre for excellence for cancer treatment in Ireland and should get more investment rather than being shut. The People Before Profit Alliance are making this as a big a key issue in the next few months. They call on all those concerned with the health system to support them. The petition to save St Luke’s is available at www.roryhearne.org. Ph 086 1523542 for information.