Issued by Clare Daly and Joe Higgins (socialistparty.net)

The announcement of the virtual closure of SR Technics aircraft maintenance base at Dublin airport, with the loss of over 1000 jobs, will have the same devastating impact on north and west Dublin as the closure of Waterford Glass and DELL on Waterford and Limerick respectively.

Councillor Daly, an Aer Lingus shop-steward said, “The root of this crisis lies in the privatisation of both TEAM Aer Lingus by a Fianna Fail/Labour government and of Aer Lingus by a Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrats government. As part of the neo liberal agenda that is currently wreaking such havoc on the economy, control of both companies was handed over to uncaccountable vulture capitalists whose only remit is maximisation of profit for private shareholders.

‘SR Technics was formed out of the old Aer Lingus Maintenance & Engineering section. It was given away for practically nothing to FLS and later sold on to SR Technics.

The Aer Lingus fleet has expanded over the past decades, if anything the number of jobs should be increasing. Instead outsourcing has resulted in those jobs going outside the country. Many of the workers are our former Aer Lingus colleagues, they should be still in employment alongside us.”

She continued, “It is nauseating and downright hypocritical of government TDs to shed crocodile tears about these job losses as if they could not be helped. Privatisation is the reason that one thousand families are being plunged into this crisis. The maintenance & engineering functions still need to be undertaken. In fact with the expansion of Dublin airport they need to be increased. Instead the government stood by when Aer Lingus axed the contracts last year despite owning 25% of the company. It is profiteering and greed that has caused this.”

Re Nationalise SR Technics And Aer Lingus
Joe Higgins said, ‘It is simply unthinkable that 1,075 full time jobs and 60 apprenticeships should be destroyed at a stroke and more especially against the background of rapidly rising unemployment elsewhere in the economy.

It is the case that aircraft servicing is critically necessary for the vast number of aircraft using Irish airports. SR Technics and Aer Lingus should both be renationalised. The staff from both companies should be central to planning a secure future for crucial services provided by both and in the process maintaining the thousands of jobs dependent on both.

It is simply obscene that vulture capitalists should have free reign to devastate thousands of good jobs and in the process destroy countless livelihoods and communities in the process in search of private profit.’

Stop the Education Cuts protest moves to the county hall swords as 400 parents students & teachers rally as councillors debate the education cuts. 

Today I was hoarse doing mega phone on the stop the education cuts demo outside Fingal County Council. Inside all the councillors voted in favour of the Socialist Party motion calling on a reversal of the budget cuts in education services. TV by http://www.firstlook.ie/

And the outcome (post debate) video Qik’ed to the web by me.

on the protest outside the dail vanessa has a message for Cowen & Lenihan (message not directed at her dad!)

Thousands of teachers, parents and students have taken to the streets of Dublin, Tullamore, Galway and Cork in opposition to the Government’s education cuts. These cuts represent the biggest attack on education in over 20 years. More than 2000 teachers are being taken out of the system at a time when more young people are coming into it.

In Fingal, it now means we have the worst pupil: teacher ratio in Europe as we already have the highest class sizes in Ireland. Prior to the cuts over 37% of children in Fingal were in classes over 30. Scandalously, this is likely to rise to over 50%! It is no accident that the highest class sizes are occurring in an area like Fingal, where the greatest level of development took place, and the maximum gains were achieved by the banks and the builders. The same individuals, who fuelled the economic crisis and escaped scot free in the budget. Profits on land speculation were reduced from 40% to 20% under the last government. Restoring it back to 40% would go a long way to meet the targets. The government didn’t have to attack education. They chose to do so. They cynically calculated that they could include so many cuts and charges across so many headings that they would leave people confused and divided – that no one issue would galvanise people.

FOR A NATIONAL HALF DAY WORK STOPPAGE

• The Budget was only the start. The economic crisis is escalating. A second Budget in the springtime is now a real possibility with massive new spending cuts.
• The pensioners protests showed how to fight the cuts. That should now be followed up with big protests against the education cuts.
• The Socialist Party believes that pressure should be put on the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to organise a half-day work stoppage against the education cuts and all other Budget cuts.
• This could send a clear message to the Government: “We will not accept your plans to make school children, the elderly and the working class pay for the crisis. Further attacks will result in an escalation of our campaign.”
• The Socialist party believes that the banks should be nationalised under democratic workers’ control and their resources used to create jobs, fund education and provide universal healthcare based on need. A progressive tax system whereby the rich pay their fair share of taxes and an increase in corporation tax on the billions in profit that are made in this country every year would raise enough money to cancel all the cutbacks being faced by ordinary people.

Greens sell out

• The Green Party set out their stall in last year’s General Election as the party that would champion education.Eighteen months on they have joined hands with Fianna Fail to butcher it. No doubt the people will remember this when next years elections roll around.

No to student fees

• The Budget increased third level student registration fees from €950 a year to €1500 a year. The government’s threat to re-introduce student fees is still very much alive and could well be acted on in 2009.
• Far from being a measure to “make the rich pay” the re-introduction of student fees of potentially €5,000 a year will place a huge burden on working class families excluding many thousands from third level education. The Socialist Party supports the student-led campaign against the fees and the attempts by the Free Education for Everyone (FEE) campaign to build a national campaign on this issue.

What the Socialist Party Stand For

• Reject the Government’s attempts to increase class sizes: for a campaign involving the teachers unions to bring the pupil/teacher ration down to 15:1 in all schools
• Stop the cuts in substitute teaching cover
• For adequate English language teaching resources to be provided in all schools with pupils for whom English is not a first language
• State funded secular education provided free for all from early childhood to university For a half-day work stoppage organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions against all the