Protest at opening of new Criminal Courts of Justice

by PBPA - People Before Profit Alliance Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:07 086 172 3535

Lock Up Corrupt Developers- Kick Out Their Fianna Fail Backers
On January 16th, the Government officially opens the doors of its latest Public Private Partnership venture – the new Criminal Courts of Justice on Parkgate Street. Multinational Babcock and Brown, the private partner, will not only get money for building the facility but will also continue for 25 years to receive a monthly fee for managing the building. This will bring the project total closer to €300 million, a far cry from the original estimate of €120 million.

The message is clear to the people of nearby O’Devaney Gardens: they will not get new housing. While the Fianna Fail / Green Party coalition government is willing to spend millions on a courts complex, it won’t spend anything on decent housing for ordinary people.

Remind our welfare-cutting Government that we haven’t gone away.
Join our picket: 2 pm, Saturday, 16th January
at the Criminal Courts of Justice on Parkgate Street.
Last year, multimillionaire developer and former Fianna Fail councillor Bernard McNamara pulled out of a PPP deal with Dublin City Council. McNamara and other private developers have left the O’Devaney residents – and those in the St Michael’s Estate, Dominic Street and Croke Villas communities – high and dry because, as McNamara said, the housing downturn and the economic slump had “rendered these projects unviable” Basically, they wouldn’t make enough profit. In-built into these PPP schemes, approved by Dublin City Council, was an excessive amount of apartments for sale. When the housing market collapsed, the developers pulled out. (In Fatima Mansions, the present day jewel in the Council’s crown, many private apartments lie vacant).
This is the problem with PPPs: when the private partner is afraid they won’t make enough money, they can just pull out with minimal consequences. And PPPs are actually dearer than the direct public route – the Comptroller and Auditor General found schools provided in this way cost up to 13 per cent more than the traditional route.

The government has no problem finding money to lock us up. But when it comes to adequate accommodation, it doesn’t want to know.

People Before Profit says
• No to PPPs that line developers’ pockets but leave families living in substandard housing.
• Yes to immediate state-funded immediate regeneration of inner city communities: to build new housing and provide jobs for local people.
• No to NAMA – the bail-out for developers and bankers
• No to the €4 billion cuts in public spending that penalise working people.

For more information:
Contact Colm Stephens 087 294 7100 or Joe Kelly 086 172 3535
People Before Profit Alliance (Dublin Central)

by V for vendetta Mon Jan 11, 2010 12:26

Keeping a judicial boot on the neck of the working man is far more important to the government and its corporate vulture capitalist friends than providing housing or services for him. The working man's tax money is not to be spent helping him out but putting in place the machinery to oppress him. That's the whole beauty of our system, don't you see? The serf pays the cost for his own oppression.

by PBPA - People Before Profit Sat Jan 16, 2010 16:18

Around 50 people at the protest organised by People Before Profit. Others groups there included Eirigi, Sinn Fein & tenants groups
Report and pictures from protest at:
http://www.peoplebeforeprofit.ie/node/274

protesters gather outside new courts building

by Sceptic. - None whatsoever Sat Jan 16, 2010 17:33

What we are good at forgetting ladies and gentlemen Is the fact They Work For US We do Not work for THEM .

The sooner the Irish People stop being a doormat for the likes of the Riff-Raff that purport to run this country of ours ,
The better we all shall be ....While we listen to who rob's who and who gets money and who is not benefitting as a result of Liars in the Know, who are in actual fact ''Beggars on Horseback'' who dont give a tuppeny f*ck as long as THEY are looked up to as Pub-lick Serpents with their own agenda with the phrase OWN being their central theme of business ...

by PBPA - People Before Profit Alliance Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:41

Community and political groups today criticised the continuing use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to fund the building of civic and residential developments. Speaking at a protest held alongside the opening of the €300m Criminal Courthouse in Dublin’s Parkgate Street, Eddie Conlon of the People Before Profit alliance dismissed the use of PPPs as “part of a neo-liberal agenda”. Conlon contrasted the new courthouse development with conditions in nearby residential areas.

Read more at:
http://www.politico.ie/index.php?option=com_content&vie...d=882