I spent several hours in Dublin’s North Inner City in recent days with my Labour colleague Joe Costello where I met with members of the local community, community leaders, business owners, educators, service providers and Gardai. The spotlight is shining on the area at this moment, thanks to the recent spate of gang-related gun deaths….

I do not welcome a visit to Ireland by Donald Trump, particularly during the course of the US Presidential election campaign. And I believe he should not receive any official welcome, even of the most cursory nature. Citizen Trump holds no elected office in the United States. To extend diplomatic courtesies would be not only…

Former Minister for Employment, and Labour Party Senator Ged Nash has said the effective ban on collective bargaining for freelance workers must be ended by the new government. He explained, “Two significant events have occurred this week which requires the Fine Gael/Independents administration to act on this specific matter. “Firstly, on Wednesday night the Dail…

I want to begin by welcoming former Clerys workers including Susie McGowan who I met yesterday and also her trade union colleagues. I also want to recognise the SIPTU members in the security and contract cleaning industries that helped negotiate new employment regulation orders which come into effect October 1st. I’m proud to speak on…

Just recently the economist Dan O’Brien noted that the Irish economy has increased employment more in the past four years that in the 70 years from 1926 to 1996. It would be really sad if as a people we in Ireland failed to learn from the near death experience of eight years ago and that’s…

Speaking in support of the creation of a new All-Party Committee on the future of healthcare in Ireland, Cork East Deputy Sean Sherlock has stressed the importance of research and academia in developing an attainable vision for the healthcare services in Ireland for the future. “Speaking as a former Minister of State for Research and…

Cork East Deputy Sean Sherlock has welcomed the Motion to create an All-Party Committee on the future of healthcare in Ireland and has stated that the Labour Party will engage in a productive manner with this new committee. Deputy Sherlock said: “If we are honest we can reasonably assume there is much common ground between…

Joan Burton TD welcomes the governments U-turn on the inclusion of the Environment portfolio from the title of the new Minister. Deputy Burton said: “The Labour Party raised deep concerns at the dropping of this title. While a number of key parts of the Environment brief have been assigned to Ministers the lack of an overarching…