Transportation powered by gasoline and diesel fuel is America’s single biggest source of carbon emissions, contributing to warming temperatures on land and in the oceans, resulting in unprecedented natural disasters. Extracting, transporting, refining and using oil and gasoline causes harm to people, air, water, land, animals, and plants. Gasoline vehicle exhaust pollutes the air, causing asthma, heart and lung disease, cancer, dementia and thousands of premature deaths each year. Vehicle exhaust affects children, disadvantaged communities and communities of color the most, with disproportionate health, financial and quality of life impacts. In the past, we adopted reasonable vehicle regulations to require seat belts, airbags, catalytic converters, unleaded gas and other improvements to protect health and safety. It’s time to act again. Electricity is already viable as a clean alternative to gasoline. Costs to fuel and maintain an electric vehicle are already cheaper than for gas cars, and electric vehicle sticker prices are forecast to be cheaper by the mid 2020s. To protect public health, clean the air, slow a rapidly warming climate, and promote economic and environmental justice, we call on our local, state and federal government officials to ensure that, starting in 2030 or sooner, all new vehicles sold are clean, zero emissions vehicles, not gasoline or diesel vehicles.

With an ever increasing population and heavier traffic on our roads, the current layout around the Monasterevin Schools is unacceptable. Every day, children are crossing roads that have no designated crossing. They are walking on the road because the footpath is unusable or non existent. They are using a junction that is too wide to cross safely with traffic coming from all directions. There are no signs to indicate a school. The current buildup of leaves is leading to ice like conditions on the roads and footpaths. The list of issues goes on and on.. Kildare County Council have refused to provide a traffic warden as recently as November 18th, and with the dark winter already upon us, our childrens lives are quite literally on the line. KCC have quite simply said no money will be spent on our childrens safety. With money widely spent across the county on traffic wardens and infrastructure, Monasterevin appears to once again be forgotten or deemed less important by Kildare County Council. We will NOT accept this. The School Road Safety Action Group, will continue to highlight this issue and will not relent until we are confident that our children can safely walk to school.

Many people in our community are already struggling to make ends meet. This rent increase will add pressure to already struggling families and individuals living in council housing.

VERY IMPORTANT to stop this legislation by Minister Murphy as it will effect our ability to take a court case/ judicial review. Environmental groups outline shock at proposed planning Bill. Proposed legislative changes would make it almost impossible for citizens and environmental groups to challenge poor planning decisions in the courts. Ireland’s leading environmental coalition is shocked at the Minister for Housing’s attempt to introduce new planning legislation that would make it near impossible to challenge planning decisions in the courts and hold public authorities and the Government to account. The Environmental Pillar – a coalition of national environmental organisations – learned over the weekend of worrying developments with the Housing and Planning and Development Bill 2019 that is being brought forward by Minister Eoghan Murphy TD. In sum, the proposed Bill will add numerous challenging requirements and restrictions that will make it very hard for ordinary citizens and environmental NGOs to achieve the necessary “standing” to take cases. The changes proposed in the Bill would also add to the complexity of the court process and increases the risks of exposure to significant costs to those seeking to challenge bad planning decisions. This legislation would row back on major changes introduced just a few years ago to enable ordinary people, their organisations, and environmental NGOs to challenge bad environmental decisions. Those changes were already long overdue and necessary to comply with EU law and the Aarhus Convention. The Heads of the Bill sent to the Joint Oireachtas Committee for Housing, Planning and Local Government last week are very blunt that the proposed changes are designed to make it more difficult to engage in the legal process and appears to favour developer’s interests at the cost of environmental rights. The most worrying aspects (some of which are further explored below) of the proposed Bill are: • Complete change to existing cost rules for environmental cases from a system where costs should “not be prohibitively expensive” to a cost cap rules system with court discretion. This exposes the public and eNGOs to much higher costs and uncertainty, ensuring that many will be dissuaded from bringing a case in the first place and makes it harder to engage lawyers • Change in standing rights requirements for applicants from “sufficient interest” to “substantial interest” and a requirement that they must be “directly affected by a proposed development” and “in a way which is peculiar or personal”. This is in addition to a new requirement that the applicant must have had prior participation in the planning process. • Extension of the minimum time that an NGO must be in existence before it can challenge a planning decision from 12 months to 3 years, thereby essentially ruling out newly established citizen-led NGOs concerned with local environmental issues from bringing challenges • Insertion of a new requirement that NGOs must have a minimum of 100 affiliated members, thereby ruling out the vast majority of Irish groups from bringing challenges. • Increased requirements for the “leave” stage (where you get court permission to challenge). The Heads of the Bill propose going back to the abandoned “on notice” system and adding to the tests and complexity of the leave – this adds to the costs, duration and difficulty of court proceedings. “This legislation would row back on major changes introduced just a few years ago to enable ordinary people and small but committed environmental NGOs to legally challenge bad environmental decisions, without fear of incurring eye-watering costs and extensive obstacles to accessing justice.” “The explanation for the Bill is blatant about making it harder to challenge decisions, with the Department arguing that challenges cause delays. It is bad decisions, and flawed legislation however, that are the real issue driving litigation in this country and this Bill does nothing to address that. “Given the context of costs in our Irish planning system, the size and nature of organisations and the costs in our courts, this Bill is an extermination of environmental democracy and oversight. It is particularly chilling that it comes at a time when environmental protection has never been more important, and citizens and groups are mobilising in a powerful Green Wave given the endless failures of this Government and administration.

The service has become inaccessible to those with disability and mobility issues. It is having a negative effect on many commuters for little gain. Journey times have not decreased as advised, in fact due to the removal of stops the journey time has increased in many cases. With bad weather and poor visability, the removal of some stops has put an immediate risk to passengers, who must now walk through poorly lit roads to reach thier closest stop.

Two members of Veterans For Peace, Ken and Tarak, were arrested on St. Patrick's day 2019 (March 17) for going onto the airfield at Shannon Airport carrying a banner that said: 'U.S. Veterans say Respect Irish Neutrality U.S. War Machine out of Shannon Airport Veterans For Peace' They wanted to demand that police inspect a U.S.-military contracted plane believed to be carrying U.S. troops and weapons on their way to illegal wars in the Middle East. These flights, which have been passing through Shannon Airport since 2001, are in violation of Irish neutrality and international law. The 2 men were charged with Trespass and Causing Criminal Damage at Shannon airport. After being held in Limerick jail for nearly 2 weeks, Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff were released on €2500 bail each and forced to surrender their passports. They have been unable to return home for over 7 months. The High Court will not reconsider their application to change their bail conditions until they can show that their trial is years off, which will be the case with the current backup of cases in the Dublin Circuit Court. Changing their bail conditions is key to getting their passports restored. The process the 2 peace activists are being forced to endure is a clear attempt to punish them before any trial takes place. Major Ken Mayers served 12 years in the US Marine Corps. He is a former National Board member of Veterans For Peace and participate in veterans peace team delegations to Palestine, Okinawa, Jeju Island, South Korea, and Standing Rock. Tarak Kauff was a paratrooper in the US Army during the early sixties. He was a member of the VFP National Board of Directors for six years. He has organized veterans delegations to Palestine, Okinawa, South Korea and Standing Rock. He is currently the managing editor of Peace In Our Times

15 Ushers Island was built for Joshua Pim, a grain merchant in 1760. In the 1890s it was the home of James Joyce's grand-aunts and was the setting of his short story 'The Dead'. It was used in 1987 by John Huston as the set for the film version (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_(1987_film). The house is of value to local residents, academics, scholars, tourists and future generations. It is of national and global cultural importance. Dublin City Council failed to purchase the house in 2017 when it was for sale. In 2021, the new owners applied for planning permission to convert the building into a 56-bed hostel. This resulted in an international outcry from thousands of people including authors Salman Rushdie, Sally Rooney, Colm Toibin and John Banville. At the time no subsequent action was taken by the council, to aquire the building through negotiations with the developer or otherwise. The council let their own heritage plan lapse after 2006 (https://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/media/file-uploads/2018-05/dublin_city_heritage_plan_2002_2006.pdf_) until 2021 when campaigners for this house, made a written complaint about the absence of a working city heritage plan. The building is now, once again at risk of culturally inappropriate development into three studios and seven one-bed apartments. National Government must act now, to save the house of 'The Dead'. The building must be restored to good condition and national ownership as soon as possible. We the undersigned object to the granting of planning permission for ten apartments at 15 Ushers' Island.  We urge the Minister to urgently issue a Ministerial Circular* to either the Office of Public Works or the Chief Executive of Dublin City Council to aquire this building. The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (DHPLG) has responsibility for implementing the Urban Regeneration and Development Funds (URDF), which has an allocation of €2 billion in the National Development Plan (NDP) to 2030. In May this year, The Minister was yet to make a decision on URDF funding allocation criteria for 2024 (https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2024-05-21/364/#pq-answers-364). We the undersigned urge Minister O'Brien to proritise funding the purchase & renovation of vacant, derelict and at risk heritage buildings in urban areas like Dublin, for consideration in Call 4 of URDF allocations.  *An example of Ministerial Circular URDF 01/2023 issued on 30th January 2023  https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/245845/84bbd340-fea9-463f-bc45-eeeb9e2c95d1.pdf#page=null

Gross misappropriation of public money. 150 million of Irish taxpayer money given to two private UK companies under the guise of jobpath.

In 2017, the Port of Cork signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with NextDecade, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) development company. The MOU allows the Port of Cork to negotiate with NextDecade on the development of a new Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) and associated LNG import terminal infrastructure in Cork harbour. We are asking the Port of Cork to rescind this undertaking in the MOU for the following reasons: 1. Climate Change To keep global temperature rise below 1.5C and to avoid catastrophic climate change, fossil or “natural” gas must be phased out of the energy mix in Europe by 2035 [i]. Claims that gas is a “transition fuel” have been discredited ͥ[ii] and recent studies show that gas sourced through hydraulic fracturing, like 69% of all gas now produced in the United States ͥ[iii] and imported to Europe as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), is 44% more damaging to the climate than coal [iv]. Research also states that we can’t develop any new fossil fuel infrastructure from 2019 onwards if we are to have a 64% chance of limiting temperature rise to less than 1.5C [v]. 2. Fracking In 2017, fracking was banned in the Republic of Ireland due to its devastating health and environmental impacts [vi]. If the Cork LNG infrastructure is developed it will facilitate the importation of fracked gas from the planned NextDecade export terminals in the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas. Allowing this infrastructure would be hypocritical of the Republic of Ireland as it would have severe impacts on indigenous and marginalised communities in Texas. 3. Renewables and Energy Security The Cork LNG infrastructure would also have a considerable negative impact on the developing Irish renewable energy industry [vii]. The government has stated that LNG projects are necessary for the purpose of energy security [viii]. However, recent research shows that the rapid development of indigenous renewables combined with energy storage technology is the best way to achieve this [ix].   [i] Anderson, K. and Broderick, J. (2017) Natural gas and climate change, Manchester: University of Manchester Available: https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/natural-gas-and-climate-change(c82adf1f-17fd-4842-abeb-f16c4ab83605).html [ii] Perez, A. (2018) Global Gas Lock-in: Bridge to Nowhere. Brussels:Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung [iii] US Energy Information Administration (2019) How much shale gas is produced in the United States? Available: https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=907&t=8 Accessed 06.11.2019 ͥ[iv] Howarth, R (2019) Opening Statement to the Joint Committee on Climate Action. Dublin: Oireachtas. Available: https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/committee/dail/32/joint_committee_on_climate_action/submissions/2019/2019-10-10_opening-statement-robert-w-howarth-ph-d-cornell-university_en.pdf Accessed 06.11.2019 ͮ[v] Smith, C. J., Forster, P. M., Allen, M., Fuglestvedt, J., Millar, R. J., Rogelj, J., & Zickfeld, K. (2019). Current fossil fuel infrastructure does not yet commit us to 1.5 C warming. Nature communications, 10(1), 101. [vi] Concerned Health Professionals of New York (2019) Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction) Available: https://concernedhealthny.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Fracking-Science-Compendium_6.pdf Accessed 06.11.2019 [vii] Shakeb Afsah & Kendyl Salcito (2014). Shale Gas: Killing Coal without Cutting CO2 Available: https://co2scorecard.org/home/researchitem/28 Accessed 06.11.2019 Accessed 06.11.2019 [viii] The Green News “State confirms support of Shannon LNG project” Available: https://greennews.ie/state-support-shannon-lng-pci/ Accessed 06.11.2019 [ix] McMullin, B., Price, P., Carton, J., & Anderson, K. (2018). Is Natural Gas “Essential for Ireland’s Future Energy Security”? Dublin:Stop Climate Chaos

Every day, Irish emigrants who have lived abroad are returning to Ireland in crisis situations such as homelessness, fleeing domestic violence, threats and intimidation, severe health and care needs, deportation, release from detention or prison, loss of income and isolation. On their return, they often struggle to get access to supports such as emergency accommodation, emergency social welfare, medical and psychological treatment, often because they are incorrectly treated differently to residents. Access to these supports is urgently needed, but bureaucracy and administration create barriers and delays to the supports and services. Crosscare Migrant Project supports returning emigrants everyday to access emergency accommodation, social welfare and medical treatment. Some people assisted by the service include older clients with severe healthcare needs and lone parents returning with young children who are asked to use night-by-night only emergency accommodation for weeks, sometimes months, on end. Crosscare Migrant Project has recently published new research identifying all the issues that emigrants in crisis experience before their return and after they have returned to Ireland. The report makes recommendations to the government to introduce appropriate and immediate access to supports such as emergency accommodation, social welfare and medical treatment. You can read the report here www.migrantproject.ie/policy_research/coming-home-in-crisis/ Please sign our petition to ask the Irish Government to support Irish emigrants #ComingHomeInCrisis.

The UNCRPD (United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities), is a human rights instrument with a social development dimension. It reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. You, me and our loved ones are very likely to acquire a disability at some point in our lives. To make decisions for yourself is WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN. No government or organisation should be able to remove these rights because we have not signed the UNCRPD, but this is occurring in Ireland today. This is hidden and happening each and EVERY DAY that we deny ourselves the rights under the UNCRPD. Please help remove the medieval Ward of Court System in this country now by making the government COMMENCE the long overdue UNCRPD. HELP COMMENCE THE UNCRPD

Rent should not take more than one third of anybody’s income. If it does so, you could be falling below the poverty line. Irish rents have reached crazy levels and they sometimes eat up nearly half of many tenants' income. The high rents mean that you can never save enough money for a deposit on a house. You will be stuck in a rent trap for the rest of your life. One in three TDs from Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are landlords – and so they have a vested interest in voting down measures that really control rent. We need a big people power movement to change all this. If you want proper rent controls that allow for downward adjustments on rents, please sign this petition. And then join the people’s movement to control rents.