Janet is under severe stress not knowing where she will be sleeping next. At her age she should have a secure home where she can have her pets and concentrate on getting better.

2 million are going to landfill week and there are cups every where on the site paths and in our parks.

The situation in direct provision is cruel, and people are stuck there for up to 7 years. Sign and share our petition here: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/end-direct-provision-avoca What's wrong with the food it provides at direct provision sites? Lack of nutritional food, chips almost every second day, a menu change every fortnight, little to no access to fresh fruit, no access to self-cater or ethnic foods. This will be one of the biggest shame's on the Irish state since the Magdelene Laundries. Aramark is a US owned company which provides the catering for 3 direct provision centers. It's big, and it doesn't care about small protests against its own name. Aramark bought out Avoca during the summer from an Irish family, and it's quickly becoming one of their most important assets. This will be highly impactful two days before Christmas. It's Avoca's busiest shopping period, and we intend to highlight Avoca and Aramark's ties to direct provision. Sign and share our petition here: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/end-direct-provision-avoca Let's make some music, and cause a bit of a jam this Christmas. More information here: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/lives-in-limbo

Currently Carlow Women's Aid are a frontline service for women and children experiencing violence and domestic abuse. The staff are a lifeline in Carlow and have helped to obtain 254 court orders and attended 388 court sittings in 2016 alone. SAFE Ireland provided a snapshot of one day in Ireland in 2015 - 505 women and 269 children sought support from a domestic violence service.112 women and 147 children were accommodated in a refuge. 18 women couldn't be accommodated in a refuge (SAFE Ireland, 2015). This huge lack of essential support services results in: Unmet requests for refuge everyday; Accommodation problems and homelessness; Staying in abusive relationships; Increasing likelihood returning to violent and abusive homes; Fear of reporting the abuse due to the lack of emergency accommodation available; This failure of affects women and children living with violence and abuse in their homes - people who are silenced and among some of the most vulnerable in the population.

If the incentives are directed towards the large energy utility companies including the ESB, Board Gas, Coilte, Board Na Mona etc and large private companies funded by venture capitalists they will build large scale solar parks mainly in the South and South East of Ireland. This would be good news for Ireland for efforts to meet our 2020 C02 obligations and a renewable future. But there will be no benefits for the majority of the population of Ireland. We will continue to pay the second highest electricity prices in the EU. A grant and a feed in tariff and possibly a generation tariff for the installation of Solar PV on houses, farm buildings and all types of commercial buildings could reduce the annual electricity bills by up to 50% and contribute towards a large reduction on Ireland's dependency on imported fuel bill of €6 billion per year.

Currently, pets such as dogs and cats are restricted from travelling on buses and taxis unless they are contained. This can be difficult in emergency situations, with regard to taxis requiring the pet to be 'contained' regardless of the welfare of the animal. I have experienced this recently and find it appalling. This is a serious issue which needs to be amended. This only exists in Ireland. In the UK pet are allowed to travel freely and are not forced into containers that could harm their wellbeing. If it works there, then it can work here! Please, if you agree that pets shouldn't have to be needlessly contained on buses and taxis, can you sign and share this petition to show The Taoiseach where you stand?

Tell the Councillors that the Sean McDermott Street Magdalene site must be preserved as a national centre for commemoration and education. The institutional and clerical abuses that have caused pain and destruction to so many people and families in Ireland must be acknowledged. We must never forget, and we must never allow them to happen again. This is the new Ireland. We can and must remember. We must honour survivors when they say: "I’d like them to acknowledge what has happened and accept what has happened - instead of saying, ‘oh yes I’m sorry,’ but no meaning behind it - and make sure it never ever, ever happens again." (Link to http://jfmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/JFMR-report-to-CAT-for-the-session-2017-Main-Report.pdf ) We must respect the survivors who tell us: "I just would like it to be known. I would like it to go into the history books and I would like...do you know, the younger generation of today including my own grandchildren to know that that’s the way it was long ago. It wasn’t the perpetrator that went in, that got into trouble, it was the victim. You know, you’d have had to have been a girl, like, for that to happen." (Link to http://jfmresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/JFMR-report-to-CAT-for-the-session-2017-Main-Report.pdf ) We must hold the Taoiseach to what he told the Pope last weekend, and demand action, not just brave words. As Leo Varadkar said on Saturday: "the failures of both Church and State and wider society created a bitter and broken heritage for so many, leaving a legacy of pain and suffering. ...It is a history of sorrow and shame. ...Wounds are still open and there is much to be done to bring about justice and truth and healing for victims and survivors." DCC Councillors will shortly vote on the following motion: “Following the repeated recommendations of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) that the Irish State should undertake a thorough and impartial investigation into ill-treatment of girls and women at the Magdalene Laundries, promote greater access to archival information regarding the Magdalene Laundries and fully implement the outstanding recommendations of Mr Justice Quirke, including services for survivors and memorialisation, the elected members of Dublin City Council (DCC) consider it entirely inappropriate that DCC is currently offering the Magdalene Laundry site at Sean McDermott Street for sale to private developers. The elected members of DCC are also concerned that, despite it being the first recommendation of Mr Justice Ryan's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, a memorial to those abused in residential schools has never been created. We hereby request a halt to the sale of the Magdalene Laundry site at Sean McDermott Street. We welcome the creation of the Lord Mayor's Commission and look forward to receiving its recommendations regarding the appropriate use of the site.”

Only approximately 7% of our children receive truly integrated education, this is a shamefully low % considering the quantity of research highlighting the importance of integrated education in securing a peaceful future for Northern Ireland. The IEF Young People's Voices Report showed that 'more than 80% of 'the young people' questioned agree that an education system bringing children of all faiths and none together in the same schools would be an important step in combating sectarianism' and yet only a handful of children and young people are given the opportunity to attend integrated schools. Even the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (in 2016) highlighted concerns that “in Northern Ireland segregation of schools by religion persists” and goes on to recommend “the State party… in Northern Ireland actively promote a fully integrated education system." There has been amazing work done by parents and voluntary organisations in setting up the many integrated schools that we currently have here but I would like to see much more being done to make Integrated Education the norm in Northern Ireland. Why now? The Department of Education has a legal duty to “encourage and facilitate the development of integrated education”. This is underlined in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; however, the Deptartment of Education has never initiated any integrated schools. Our education budget is at breaking point. Integrated schools serve all sections of Northern Ireland society so they not only make sense from a peace perspective but make sense economically. Taxpayers are paying extra for a divided system! This was a mistake for NI and we should call a stop on it now. Please sign this petition asking that Integrated Schools should take precedence when any new school is proposed

Independent experts have warned this reckless dumping of radioactive mud into coastal waters could result in contamination spreading via the sea. [1] Heavily contaminated waste from Sellafield has washed up on seashores in dangerous concentrations - if this dumping isn't stopped, the same could happen again. Big business is trying to push this through - without a full environmental impact study, we have no assurance this toxic waste won't wind up on Irish shores. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/14/hinkley-point-radioactive-mud-dumped-cardiff-severn-estuary

Combined Assad Regime/Russian attacks on Eastern Ghouta: -> On November 27th 2017, the Syrian Network for Human Rights released a report [1] detailing the horrific increase in military assaults on Eastern Ghouta, a region with approximately 400,000 people enduring years of siege at the hands of the Syrian regime and allied forces [2]. 147 civilians including 37 children had been killed in two weeks of attacks. The report stresses “that the Syrian and Russian regimes have, beyond any doubt, violated Security Council Resolutions 2139 and 2254 which both state that indiscriminate attacks must be halted. Also, The Syrian and Russian regimes have violated Article 8 of Rome Statute through the act of willful killing which constitutes war crimes.” The report adds that: “the bombardment has targeted defenseless civilians. Therefore, Syrian and Russian forces have violated the rules of the international human rights law which guarantee the right to life. Additionally, these violations were perpetrated in a non-international armed conflict which amount to a war crime where all elements were fulfilled.” Russia blocking apprehension of perpetrators of Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapons massacre: -> The U.N. Security Council adopted resolution 2235 (2015) on 7 August 2015, condemning “any use of any toxic chemical, such as chlorine, as a weapon in the Syrian Arab Republic”, and expressing determination to identify and hold accountable those responsible for such acts. This saw the establishment of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) between the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to identify and hold accountable those responsible for such acts.[3] On November 17th 2016 the Security Council renewed the mandate of the JIM. However, subsequent to the infamous Khan Sheikhoun chemical weapon attack in April 2017, a UN investigation panel had been able to establish definitively that regime forces had carried out that chemical weapons attack[4]. As a result of that finding, Russia used its veto at the U.N. Security Council twice - on November 16th and 17th, 2017 - to prevent the renewal of the JIM’s mandate, making it impossible for all intents and purposes the task of holding to account those responsible for the attack. [5] In the interests of Syrian civilians, it is of course necessary to engage with Russia in order to eventually achieve peace for Syria. As Frederic Hof - writing for the Atlantic Council [6] - has pointed out however, this should not be interpreted as cooperation with them. In relation to the assault on Eastern Ghouta, it is fitting to end our petition with this quote from a resident of Eastern Ghouta when interviewed on Newsnight on November 27th, 2017: “There are no deadly weapons that we haven't been targetted with. You who are listening to me. What more are you waiting for? Our extermination?” [7] 1: http://sn4hr.org/wp-content/pdf/english/The_bombing_and_siege_of_the_eastern_Ghouta_cancels_the_next_round_of_Geneva_en.pdf 2: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/siege-eastern-ghouta-blot-world-conscience-171120191755424.html 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPCW-UN_Joint_Investigative_Mechanism 4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/world/middleeast/syria-chemical-khan-shekhoun.html?action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article 5: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/18/syria-chemical-attacks-haley-russia-shameful-veto-un-inquiry 6: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/cooperate-with-russia 7: See video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEHM8krVMr4&list=PLJxnQXiytA_Qc0B57aViue2G3DPet1Z0L#action=share

We are close neighbours and need to find a solution that holds the peace process and the good relationships that have been so hard won. Brexit is going to hurt us all - and as political leaders you need to take responsibility for the avoiding making the situation worse than it needs to be,

As per the Irish Times article on November 29th by Kitty Holland, homelessness among single adults is up 44% in the Midlands in the year since October 2016 and this shelter, having already cut its staffing is now facing closure (1). The assertion by the Department of Housing that "the needs of regions are kept under review on an ongoing basis" and "it will help to meet the costs faced by housing bodies." is clearly not of any value here. This shelter which also serves the needs of people in Laois, Longford and Offaly needs to be kept open and Midlands Simon has to be given concrete assurances that it will receive adequate funding as a matter of urgency. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/sole-westmeath-homeless-shelter-likely-to-close-over-funding-1.3308697