Investor Court System (ICS) is a dispute settlement tribunal where foreign investors and corporations can take a case against Ireland for 'perceived' breaches in CETA’s investment protection standards. It allows investors to go straight to these special tribunals and sideline domestic courts and those of the European Union. Once CETA is ratified, investor court decisions cannot be challenged by either the State or the EU - this is the equivalent of handing corporations a blank cheque! Local communities and businesses across Ireland are fighting back. Together we are showing government parties and politicians that this form of corporate takeover is going to cost them dearly in the next election. And we need our local politicians to stand with us by supporting this. For more info on CETA ICS, check out this fact checker: https://comhlamh.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CETA-ICS-Fact-Checker.pdf

Investor Court System (ICS) is a dispute settlement tribunal where foreign investors and corporations can take a case against Ireland for 'perceived' breaches in CETA’s investment protection standards. It allows investors to go straight to these special tribunals and sideline domestic courts and those of the European Union. Once CETA is ratified, investor court decisions cannot be challenged by either the State or the EU - this is the equivalent of handing corporations a blank cheque! Local communities and businesses across Ireland are fighting back. Together we are showing government parties and politicians that this form of corporate takeover is going to cost them dearly in the next election. And we need our local politicians to stand with us by supporting this.

Students were told in an email from NUIG in the summer of 2020 to book accommodation in Galway for the college year, as all students would have time on-campus. In reality, the vast majority of students have had little or no on-campus activity. Cúirt na Coiribe and the Westwood refuse to refund students who took out leases in the anticipation that they would need accommodation in Galway. Many of these students have never set foot inside the accommodation which they are renting.

This is important because 13 years of incredible work from the community and its stakeholders is being torn up because a Minister and his party believe they know more than Moyross community. This party have never tried to support our community and are now actively destroying its future. This is important for all communities to show those who are publicly elected that they cannot deafen the voice of the people.

The Thirty-Seventh Amendment Of The Constitution (Economic, Social And Cultural Rights) Bill 2018 would call for a referendum to have these human rights enshrined in our Constitution. They would encompass a right to adequate housing, a right to join a trade union of your choice, a right to physical and mental health and a right to enjoy scientific progress. All of which have become more important during this global pandemic.

Kingspan, an Irish company based in Cavan, manufactured Grenfell Tower’s combustible insulation. During the Grenfell Inquiry into the tower block fire which killed 72 people in 2017, a former executive said that the firm was involved in a “deliberate and calculated deceit”, which involved marketing the product without solid test evidence. The inquiry has also heard that Kingspan rigged tests and hired lobbyists after the disaster to try to persuade MPs that rival non-combustible products might be no less dangerous. Ulster Rugby should play no part in whitewashing Kingspan's image and must terminate it's sponsorship relationship and rename the stadium. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/30/kingspan-manager-belligerent-over-fire-concerns-in-2008-grenfell-inquiry-hears

Under the Domestic Violence Act 2018, there are three different orders that victims of abuse can apply at the District Court. These are; Barring Orders, Safety Orders, and Temporary Protection Orders. In many cases, the perpetrator must be notified of an order against them - either orally by the applicant or Gardaí, or they will be notified of the order by post. An order does not take effect until it is served to the respondent. In the case of a protection order, or an interim barring order, the court usually directs that order to be served on the respondent by An Garda Síochána. . The Orders that cause the most issue are Barring or Safety orders as these have both the victims and the abusers addresses on them.

We need your help urgently to stop illegal evictions in Sheikh Jarrah. Please help Mohammad Sabbagh and other residents to keep their home in East Jerusalem. Mohammad is just one Sheikh Jarrah resident who faces becoming a refugee for the second time. Mohammad and his family were originally made refugees in 1948 during what Palestinians call the 'Nakba', meaning catastrophe, which saw between 750,000 and 1,000,000 Palestinians driven from their land in what Israel calls its War of Independence. The Sabbagh family fled from Jaffa and were awarded a home in then Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem in 1956 when the UN built 26 houses for 30 Palestinian families who had fled from Jaffa, Haifa and West Jerusalem. In 1967 Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem and has since made every effort to remove the Palestinian population and cut the city off from the rest of the West Bank. Mohammad is now in his 70's and faces becoming a refugee for the second time in his life. Since 2008 he and his family have been battling a settler group in court over ownership of their property. The Israeli courts have unsurprisingly ruled in favour of the illegal settlers, and 45 members of the family are now facing forced eviction from their homes. In the last week Mohammad was issued with an eviction notice to vacate his home before November 24th. His lawyer has lodged a successful appeal which has moved the case to a higher court. But the threat of eviction remains high for Mohammad and other residents of Sheikh Jarrah. Why Sheikh Jarrah? Sheikh Jarrah has come under mounting pressure from the Israeli government in recent years. The East Jerusalem neighbourhood is a key target for settler activity due to its location. Sheikh Jarrah is located in close proximity to the Green Line (1949 Armistice Line). Sheikh Jarrah has been at the forefront of Israeli efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Jerusalem. What does international law say? According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs the 1967 occupation and annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by the international community, “with the UN Security Council repeatedly declaring all legislative measures and actions taken by Israel to alter the character and status of Jerusalem to be null and void.” Furthermore This eviction amounts to forcible transfer, which is in direct contravention of the fourth Geneva Convention. Article 49, first paragraph, of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.” Take action We therefore demand Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney take urgent action on this matter and call for an immediate halt to the forced displacement of Mohammad Sabbagh, his family, and community. Please take a moment to sign and share this petition. Further reading https://www.ochaopt.org/content/imminent-eviction-palestinian-family-east-jerusalem https://eyewitnessblogs.com/2020/05/29/you-know-we-like-life-and-we-have-a-right-to-live-it-evictions-and-resistance-in-sheikh-jarrah/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/1/15/israel-evicting-palestinian-family-to-replace-them-with-settlers

The current pandemic has seen many people have their incomes severely affected or lost their jobs. More strain should not be put on struggling families by increasing council rents. While we understand council revenues are down due to the pandemic, local tenants should not have to pick up the tab for a lack of funds from central government.

In August 2020 it was announced that the Department of Justice is intending to set up a Direct Provision Centre for people who have fallen victim to the commercial sex trade which is to be run by DePaul and Ruhama. Victims of the commercial sex trade in this context means people who engaged in sex work or survivors of sex trafficking. We also believe other vulnerable people who have been victimised will be moved to this centre. While we welcome an end to human trafficking survivors being housed in Direct Provision, we would like to see everyone removed from Direct Provision and housed within communities. This step being a longer-term objective means we need to express our disapproval that Ruhama be placed in a position of responsibility within any new centre. Ruhama was founded by The Sisters of Charity and The Sisters of The Good Shephard. As of August 2020, Ruhama, while claiming to be secular, still had 3 members of the Sisters of The Good Shephard order on their board and pushes extreme ideology in relation to autonomy and sex work and sex trafficking. The Sisters of the Good Shephard and the Sisters of Charities claim to have a long history with “troubled women” from the 18th century until the eventual closure of the last laundry closing in the early 2000’s Magdalene Laundries were run by orders of nuns including the Sisters of the Good Shephard who both founded Ruhama and have current positions on their board. The Sisters of Charity too ran Magdalene Laundries. Both refused to meet their victims just a year ago. The orders trafficked women into commercial and domestic slavery and trafficked their children all around the world without consent, more sadly died. By the time the last Laundry closed the orders were involved in Ruhama. The abuses and inhumanity in the Magdalene Laundries run by The Sisters of Charity and The Sisters of the Good Shephard are finally coming into light in their full horror and in spite of attempts to seal the archives, the survivors and the public continue to fight to have them accessible for those they impacted. These two orders and those like them trafficked tens of thousands of vulnerable women and children. Putting an organisation which was founded and still claims members of an order who ran a human trafficking cartel in Ireland for decades, in a place of responsibility over vulnerable victims is absolutely irresponsible and completely ignores what we have learned from our own history. We must insist that Ruhama is taken out of the list of viable options for this role. Irish people continue to suffer at the hands of the Sisters of the Good Shephard and the Sisters of Charity and while we fight to ensure those victims still have the right to access their personal information, we must also ensure that we never allow institutions to be founded which we know have lead to abuse and degradation and damage to human life. Ruhama in its capacity as an anti sex trafficking organisation has derailed the anti- human trafficking efforts by focusing so much attention on sex trafficking while not acknowledging that labour trafficking has been the largest kind of trafficking in Ireland consistently until last year. We are unaware of any anti-labour trafficking organisation currently receiving any state funding. Child trafficking is also a serious issue on the ground when working in anti-human trafficking in Ireland, yet the only dedicated anti child trafficking organisation is not regularly funded by the Department of Justice. By conflating sex work and sex trafficking as similarly victimising Ruhama have inflated sex trafficking to be the largest nationwide trafficking phenomena which our work on the ground would discredit. We also find their attitude towards sex workers as “women in prostitution” and the lack of representation of sex workers and trafficking survivors within Ruhama to be massively problematic.

I don't own a house, I can't afford to buy in this area. I'm a native Irish speaker who wishes to live in the Gaeltacht. As an OAP, I cannot get a bank loan or a mortgage to enable me to buy an overpriced house in Corca Dhuibhne

It is with a heavy heart that I am writing to you in regards to the cuts in EWSS and PUP last Friday 18th September. Despite several thousand emails arriving into TD's inboxes last week on this matter, all we have received are unfulfilled promises from the current government. The news of these cuts came at the same time we were informed that the bars in Dublin and surrounding areas would be shut for a further 3 weeks! To say this is kicking us while we're down, is an understatement. I know a lot of local constituents facing hardship as a direct result of the lack of action, leadership, and support from the current government, during this pandemic. This includes volumes of bartenders, chefs, kitchen porters, managers, servers, reservations staff, security, HR departments, young performers and musicians! There is a deep rooted culture that is being neglected for public health reasons, and although that is justifiable, it does not in the slightest justify the lack of support we need to receive for our sacrifices. It has now reached a point in time where some are making the decision between the roof over their heads and the food on their tables. There is a terrible attitude towards live performers and the hospitality sector, as if our professions do not justify the money we receive. That is very much pandering to a division in class, and it totally undermines the lengths and efforts to develop and master the talents that we were given. As you are well aware, the amount of revenue the government receives from the Tourism, Hospitality, and Live entertainment industries through taxation is substantial! License fees, VAT, PAYE, the list goes on! We have paid our fair way just like any other fully employed person has done and we should continue to receive the PUP until our industry is open again. To say there is a feeling of no confidence in this government is an understatement. Change was demanded at the beginning of this year and when this Dail was formed. We were promised change by the same two parties that have promised it so many times and failed to deliver. We were promised change when the opposition stepped back on forming a left minority. We were promised change and the only change we have witnessed has been in the wrong direction for us. It has taken 8 months to come up with a less than adequate 5 level plan for this pandemic, an issue that requires emergency response times and clear concise rules, not guidelines! We understand that a pandemic of this nature is quite a challenge for any government to tackle and our advice to you as the owners and workers of the hospitality sector is to listen to your constituents, especially the experts of each respective sector. In our case, we have sacrificed our main source of income to help you tackle this public health crisis, the least you can do is to help us in return. We demand the immediate reinstatement of the EWSS and PUP payment at the full rate per week (350EUR) for the highly skilled staff and businesses of this valued sector, until the sector (which is fully closed by government under public health advice) is allowed to return to work. We will continue to do our part for the sake of this country and we hope you will hold your end of the bargain too. Go raibh maith agaibh,