Other News In Brief

Sinn Féin Praise Delegates Of Youth Assembly

Sinn Féin Climate Action spokesperson David Cullinane has praised the delegates of the Youth Assembly on Climate Action, adding that their participation today provides leadership on an issue while the establishment lags behind.

Deputy Cullinane said: "The 157 delegates to today's Assembly on climate Action show once again that it is the youth that are providing the energy and action that is driving this issue forward.

"As with Greta Thurnberg and the school strikes, young people are putting it up to the politicians to act, and act swiftly.

"Their knowledge and analysis of climate change is often streets ahead of the opinion makers and establishment experts who push piecemeal gestures instead of structural change.

"Young people completely get this issue, and I am looking forward with keen interest to their assembly and the solutions and policies that come out of it.

"It is heartening to see young people demanding that politicians do more to tackle climate change and Sinn Féin is up to the challenge."

Three Men Arrested In Connection With Shooting In Lucan In September

Three men have been arrested in connection with a shooting in Dublin on 04 September.

In the incident on Griffeen Glen Park in Lucan a number of shots were fired at a man sat in a car.

The men, two aged in their 20s and the third in his 30s, are being questioned at separate Dublin Garda Stations. They can be held for up to 24 hours.

TDs Urged To Reconvene Community Sector High-Level Forum

Community Employment (CE) Supervisors will visit Dáil Éireann to present a letter to TDs demanding they put pressure on Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, to reconvene the Community Sector High-Level Forum.

Supporting the call, SIPTU Sector Organiser, Eddie Mullins, said: "SIPTU and Fórsa wrote to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe, in October calling on him to convene a meeting of the Community Sector High Level Forum to discuss issues of importance within the sector including funding, pensions and policy.

"The letter highlighted the factually incorrect response he made to a question from Bríd Smith TD concerning the cost of honouring a Labour Court recommendation on the right of community employment scheme supervisors to a pension.

"In his Dáil response, the Minister claimed that the matter was the subject of extensive discussion at the Community Sector High Level Forum. This is not correct. Figures provided by department officials during a limited engagement with union representatives were proven to be completely inaccurate. 

He added: "The High Level Forum, which includes representatives of government departments, statutory agencies and trade unions involved in the community sector, was due to convene quarterly to allow this and other issues to be properly considered but has not met since December 2017." 

Fórsa assistant general secretary, Ian McDonnell, said: "Since December 2017, union representatives have been waiting to meet with the Minister, or his officials, to show how figures referred to by his Department in relation to the cost of honouring the Labour Court recommendation on the right of community employment scheme supervisors to a pension are completely inaccurate." 

He added: "We will be calling on TDs to raise this issue in the Dáil and directly with the Minister. The Community Sector High Level Forum must be convened urgently in order to address the very serious issues in the sector."

(MH/CM)