Author Archives: Admin

Peacockspiderman (possibly not his real name) sez:

A short compilation of 51 Australian peacock spiders. I filmed these and few additional ones that I didn’t find space for in this clip over the last few years. Thanks to Universal Music for allowing me to use the Bee Gees track. I often thought it is the perfect tune for letting peacock spiders dance to…

Have you met Sparklemuffin and Skeletorus?

likecool

As Dublin filmmaker and musician Rob Reeves continues his vox pop-based journey across America with his pal Moogle…

Rob speaks with a socialist and an anarchist in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Previously: Rob Reeves on Broadsheet

Further to the Department of Housing’s figures released yesterday which show 5,187 adults and 2,973 children were using emergency accommodation in the last week of July 2017.

NAMAwinelake tweetz:

Analysis of homeless *adults only* by county for past three months; Tipperary increased by 15 adults, or 20% in month of July alone.

Earlier: When Anthony Met The Housing Minister

Yesterday: How Many?

Pupils from the Ballinteer Educate Together School outside the Dail in May

You may recall pupils from the Ballinteer Educate Together School protesting outside the Dáil in May.

The school has been housed in temporary accommodation since 2012 with no word on a permanent building in sight.

Further to this…

The school has written the following open letter to Minister for Education Richard Bruton:

Day 100 – Nothing funny today, Richard Bruton TD, just sadness and disappointment that 100 days after the children of Ballinteer Educate Together proudly marched on the Dáil to ask you where their long promised school is, after months and years of letters and emails, and even cheery postcards from their holidays, we are still no closer to an answer from you and the Department of Education and Skills as to the status of our long promised new building.

After five years we are grateful to have left the overcrowded prefabs at St Tiernan’s and are thankful to them for their patience in accommodating us.

Our principal, teachers, staff and parents, in hand with the Department, have done a wonderful job preparing Notre Dame for our children.

But it is not out our school.

It does not serve the catchment area it was promised to. Some families have found the logistics impossible and children have left, classes have been disrupted and as resilient as our school community is, we are bruised.

With such continued silence it seems implausible our school will be ready by September 2019, so where will you put us then?

Our school will be almost eight years old at that stage, and when it should be a flourishing and vital part of the greater Ballinteer area, it will remain rootless.

All we can do is ask you again to please come and meet us and help us understand what can be done to progress this situation. We all want the same thing, a beautiful and thriving school to help serve the community of Dublin 16.

Let’s work together and let’s #BuildBallinteerETNS

The parents of Ballinteer Educate Together.

Previously: If The Kids Are United

Thanks Dudley Colley

This morning.

Outside Custom House.

Where an “emergency housing summit” is taking place in which the Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy will meet CEOs of the local authorities across Ireland and their housing personnel.

And further to the Department of Housing releasing figures yesterday which show 8,160 homeless people – more than a third of whom are children – were living in emergency accommodation in the last week of July.

Anthony Flynn, of Inner City Helping Homeless, a voluntary group which has been helping homeless people in Dublin for the past four years, confronted Mr Murphy.

From their exchange:

Anthony Flynn: “We’ve looked for several meetings with you.”

Eoghan Murphy: “We have a huge amount of people…”

Talk over each other

Flynn: “We understand that. But ou’re bringing the CEOs in here today. The people who are actually on the ground, doing the work on a nightly basis, that are looking at these people that are dying on our streets. We’ve had five deaths in less than a week and your office has failed to communicate to us, with regard to…hang on, let me finish.”

Murphy: “Yeah, sorry.”

Flynn: “Not only the work that we’re doing for the last four years on the streets but the My Name Is campaign has travelled this country in regards to child homelessness and the unprecedented levels of child homelessness that are happening at the moment. And yet we haven’t had the respect of a reply from your office.”

“Your predecessor Simon Coveney would meet me in the Gresham Hotel on a weekly basis to discuss issues in regards to homelessness, yet your office couldn’t do that.”

“Now we’re here today, you’re calling in the CEOs of the local council. We’ve heard from the Housing SPC chair that the council haven’t got the money to build, that your department is not releasing that money to build housing, ok.”

“Now social housing can’t be built because the CEOs haven’t got a mandate because they haven’t got money.”

“So if they haven’t got the money, how are they expected to build. This meeting today could be a waste of time in our opinion if the CEOs are not being given the money from your department.”

“Your department have consistently relied on the voluntary housing bodies, the voluntary housing bodies to build and look for money from Europe to build because your department doesn’t want to have to take that money.”

“Or Paschal Donoghue doesn’t want to have to take that money down because it affects your GDP and it affects the market.”

Murphy: “Can I respond? There’s not a problem with funding at all. This year we’re going to build four times as many social houses that we built in 2015 and we have more money to re-prioritise that into social housing as well.

“The local authorities have to work with the housing bodies to actually build new houses and that’s what we want to do. Hold on, I’m here talking to you now and I’ll talk to anyone about the issue but I’m working on this every day.”

“It’s a top priority for the Government and you need to understand that.”

“The reason the local authority chiefs are coming in today is because I’m funding them directly and they’re directly responsible to me. We’re building social housing and dealing with this crisis and that’s what we’re talking about today.”

Previously: How Many?

Via Sean Defoe

UPDATE:

How many is that exactly?

Oh.

Via NAMAwinelake

Meanwhile…

Inside the summit…

And outside…

Sean Defoe tweetz:

And the award for best prop at a photocall goes to Paul Murphy and Solidarity’s elephant in the room about homelessness.

Pics via Sean Defoe

Kieran writes:

Dublin Cycling Campaign is hosting a mass cycle along Dublin’s Quays this Sunday to demonstrate support for the Liffey Cycle Route. This fun, free, family-friendly cycle will highlight the need for a safe, segregated cycle route along the Quays, from the Phoenix Park down the the Point Village.

The Liffey Cycle will depart from the Wellington Monument in the Phoenix Park at 11am and then proceed down the Quays in one large convoy of bikes. After a brief pause near the Beckett Bridge we will head to Phibsborough where local residents and Phizzfest will provide music and refreshments outside Bang Bang Café on Leinster Street.

This is a free event and no registration is required. Every type of cyclist, and non-cyclist, is welcome to come along. Marshalling and traffic management will be provided by Dublin Cycling Campaign and the Garda Traffic Corp. For more information please check out Dublin Cycling Campaign’s website.