Finance - Thurles Information

Strike Action By Health & Community Care Workers Averted.

A promised strike by some 5,000 community healthcare staff and social care workers from 19 organisations has been averted, following an 8% pay offer made, after long drawn out talks, late last night.

Workers at Daughters Of Charity Child and Family Service, DePaul Ireland, Ardeen Cheshire Ireland, Ability West, Co-action West Cork, Cobh Hospital, Don Bosco Care and Enable Ireland, Family Resource Centres, the Irish Wheelchair Association, Kerry Parents and Friends, St Catherine’s Association, St Joseph’s Foundation, St Luke’s Nursing Home, and the Western Care Association were all due to hold future stoppages.

Talks between the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Health and the ICTU group of unions, have now agreed to recommend that the new pay offer be accepted, same having been brokered at the Workplace Relations Commission.

The new deal will include a 3% pay rise backdated to April 1st 2023; another 2% on November 1st 2023 and a further 3% on March 1st also this year.

Further discussions on a key demand to link pay to public servant’s wages are also proposed as part of this agreement, with the government acknowledging that workers pay in section 39, section 56 and section 10 organisations had fallen behind equivalent and comparable grades in public service organisations.

The Workplace Relations Commission will now convene the parties, to the agreement, before December 1st, 2023

Ireland Winning Economic Pentathlon.

According to ‘The Economist’, latter a British weekly newspaper printed in magazine format and published digitally; Ireland is winning the EU ‘economic pentathlon’.
The publication which focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology and culture.
considers Ireland the best prepared country to face an economic downturn and best situated to drive long-term growth.

**Image courtesy ‘The Economist’** **newspaper**.

They state that European economies are in for a future troubling few years, while Germany is probably already in recession.

The European Commission is forecasting growth of just 0.8% for the EU as a whole, this year, and possibly a little more next year, 2024.
Inflation is declining very slowly, which prompted the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise its rates yet again at its last September meeting.
‘The Economist’ newspaper claims that overall business confidence continues to worsen, resulting in the European Commission asking the ECB’s former boss, Mr Mario Draghi, to now come up with a plan to strengthen Europe’s economy.

An Garda Síochána’s Plans For €10 million Overtime Allocation.

The press release today issued by Fine Gael Minister for Justice Mrs Helen McEntee: it’s all just about future voter optics.
Would this €10 million not have been better spent invested in health issues like Limerick University Hospital, which has been historically under funded by successive Fianna Fáil & Fianna Gael led governments?
Why didn’t Minister for Justice Mrs Helen McEntee just give €1 million to those who are walking the streets of Dublin, currently causing a state of disorder, due to the total absence of authority and parental control?
Same funding could have been granted on condition that these rude, crude, uneducated, and uncivilized, barbarous persons stay off the streets of Dublin!

Increased deployment of public order unit and other specialist units in Dublin City Centre.
Overtime will provide up to 48,500 extra Garda hours per month across all Dublin Garda Divisions
Days of Action to be held across Dublin, by Gardaí.

The Minister for Justice, Mrs Helen McEntee TD, has welcomed details announced by Ms Angela Willis, Assistant Garda Commissioner for the Dublin Metropolitan Region, of how the additional €10 million allocation to An Garda Síochána will be used to bolster high visibility policing in Dublin city.

Minister McEntee last month announced the additional funding for Garda overtime, to increase high visibility policing in the Dublin Metropolitan Region.

The Minister is committed to ensuring Dubliners working and living in our capital, and those who visit the city, are safe and feel safe. An enhanced visible policing presence is central to achieving this objective and Minister McEntee is in regular contact with An Garda Síochána in this regard.

She welcomed the detail provided today by Assistant Commissioner Willis on how the additional €10 million is being spent, and will be spent, to provide consistent high visibility policing in the capital.

This includes:

Increased deployment of the Garda National Public Order Unit in the city centre, with €2m of the €10million dedicated to increased public order capacity
An enhanced visible Garda presence at strategic locations in Dublin city centre
Uniformed Gardaí supported in the city centre by the Garda Air Support Unit, the Garda Mounted Unit, the Garda Dog Unit, Regional Armed Response Units, and Road Policing Units to enhance visibility in the city centre
Planned days of high impact operations in the city centre and across all DMR divisions
High visibility patrols on the transport network and near transport services
An enhanced Operation Citizen, including a focus on tackling street level drug dealing, anti-social behaviour and the seizure of alcohol in the city centre

Minister McEntee said: “As Minister for Justice I am committed to ensuring that Gardaí have the resources they need to build stronger, safer communities. This additional funding will help with the Garda commitment to continue to protect Dublin communities and ensure that the city is a safe place for all to live, work and visit. I am pleased that the plans now in place by the Garda Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner Willis and Garda management will deliver high visibility policing in the capital to support safety in Dublin.
While policing alone cannot solve many of the factors which contribute to criminality or people feeling unsafe, high visibility policing is crucial to providing reassurance for all who live in, work in or visit our capital city.
I also look forward in the coming weeks to launching the Community Safety Plan for Dublin’s north inner city. This plan, drawn up by the Community Safety Partnership which I established, recognises that increasing safety is not just the responsibility of An Garda Síochána alone.
It also requires significant input from the local community and other State services, such as local authorities, health, education and others.
But nobody knows better than local communities how to increase safety in their areas – and that is why the community is centrally involved in drawing up these plans.”

The North Inner City Local Community Safety Partnerships (LCSPs) is one of three pilots established by Minister McEntee, ahead of the rollout of the partnerships locally next year. The Dublin LCSP is due to publish its Community Safety Plan in the coming weeks.

Minister McEntee added: “In the coming weeks, I will also announce the latest round of funding grants under the Community Safety Innovation fund, which I established to reinvest the ill-gotten proceeds of crime as seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau into local projects to improve community safety.”

Budget 2023 also reflects the commitment of Government to ensuring that our communities are safe and that An Garda Síochána has the resources required to operate effectively. The budget provided by Government to the Garda Commissioner continues to increase to unprecedented levels, with an allocation of more than €2 billion for 2023.

Minister McEntee said that Garda recruitment is now accelerating after a Covid enforced pause, with new classes both entering and graduating from the Garda College in Templemore every three months.

The Minister said: “We are seeing numbers consistently increase in Templemore. 135 trainees entered the training college in February and another 154 in May. Another class of 174, the largest class since Covid, entered the college at the end of July, continuing the building momentum in recruitment.
100 new Gardaí have attested so far this year; another 470 will be in active training – and two more classes are due into Templemore in October and December. And I also look forward to attending the graduation of the next class in October, as well as working with colleagues in Government to ensure this strong pipeline of recruits is maintained.
Along with Minister of State James Browne (Fianna Fáil), I am also committed to further expanding the number of Youth Diversion Programmes, which do hugely valuable work, across the country.”

Through the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 the Department of Justice is broadening and deepening the services provided by the network of Youth Diversion Projects across the State.

This puts a focus on Early Intervention and Family Support programmes for children at risk, as well as access to appropriate Education, Training and Youth Services.

The Department of Justice is currently funding eight Youth Diversion Projects covering the Dublin City Centre area (specifically Dublin 1, 7 and 8) and is committed to expanding the number of YDPs across the country.

Funding for Youth Diversion Projects is provided by the Department of Justice and co-financed by the European Social Fund’s ESF+ Programme.

Chaos At Thurles ATMs Following Bank Of Ireland Glitch.

**Social Media image of Thurles BOI ATM last night.**

Bank of Ireland reports that a technical issue which impacted on a number of its IRT services has now been rectified.

Same service glitch meant that customers were able to transfer and withdraw funds that did not actually exist in their personal bank accounts.

Queues formed at ATMs across the country last night, as people rushed to withdraw cash, after transferring non-existent funds to their Revolut accounts.
There are reports on Social Media of mass purchases of cigarettes, TVs, petrol & diesel.

Apologising for the impacted services, this morning, Bank of Ireland have confirmed that in such cases the transfers and withdrawals will be fully applied to customer accounts today.

They are also urging any customers who may now find themselves in financial difficulty, because of withdrawals on their account, to make contact with them.

In a statement the bank said “Overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day. We are aware that the technical issue meant some customers were able to withdraw or transfer funds above their normal limits. These transfers and withdrawals will be applied to customers accounts today. We urge any customer who may find themselves in financial difficulty due to overdrawing on their account to contact us. We sincerely apologise for the disruption this outage caused – we know we fell far below the standards our customers expect from us.”

Tipperary Traveller Family Found To Be Living In Wretched Circumstances.

Yesterday, High Court judge Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger has described claims that a Tipperary traveller family of six, have been living in a one-berth caravan and sleeping in a car for months, as being both “wretched” and a “very unsettling situation.”

Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger has granted lawyers, acting on behalf of Mr John and Mrs Nikita McInerney, together with their four young children, permission to bring a High Court challenge against Tipperary Co Council in the handling of the families accommodation situation.

The McInerney traveller family maintain that they had been living at the side of the road near Toomevara, Co. Tipperary for some months, but having being moved on, they are currently located at the Springfort Retail Park, in Nenagh and have since been informed by An Garda Síochána they must immediately vacate same location as well.

The family now fear that they may be prosecuted by An Garda Síochána, and have their vehicles; namely their car and a one berth caravan, used to sleep in, seized, rendering them without a roof over their head.

The McInerney family had spent some time previously in emergency accommodation, and in their High Court action, have claimed that since May they have been precluded by Tipperary Co. County Council from obtaining hotel accommodation, as the Council claim that they are only provided with funds that partially cover the cost of B&B accommodation.

In court yesterday Mr Colm O’Dwyer SC, with Mr Sean Betty BL, instructed by solicitors for the Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) described the Co. Council’s policy towards the McInernery family as being rigid, inflexible and not meeting his clients’ basic needs.

Counsel for the McInerney family said that the current caravan accommodation was totally unsuitable, and the Gardai had also informed the family that they must vacate the area of the retail park.

Tipperary Co. Council had offered his clients, (latter in receipt only of social welfare), just €100 per night towards the cost of B&B accommodation, which remained insufficient; with the cost of B&Bs more than what they have been grant aided by the Council.
For a variety of reasons the family find it difficult to get emergency accommodation due: (1) To their family size; (2) Places contacted being filled by tourists: (3) Prices being charged exceeding grant aid from the Co. Council; and finally (4) It has to be remembered that their children are due and required to return to school come the end of this summer holiday period.

Counsel for the McInerney family said that the council’s current decision amounts to a breach of the McInerney families constitutional and ECHR rights, and the local authority’s obligations, under the 2014 Irish Human Rights and Equality Act.

While encouraging both sides to work together to resolve this situation; Ms Justice Bolger said that while noting the council’s response to the McInerney family’s current situation, the situation remained unsatisfactory from both parties’ point of view. She further stated; before adjourning the case to a date in September next, that the matter was indeed urgent, and expressed the wish to have both arguments, placed before the court ASAP.