Publishing Guide

Upcoming Events

National | Rights, Freedoms and Repression

no events match your query!

New Events

no events posted in last week

Other Press

Rights, Freedoms and Repression

Woman whose soup run fed 250 homeless in Dublin told to cease or face €300k fine 21:35 Feb 07 2 comments

Germany cannot give up it's Nazi past - Germany orders Holocaust survivor institutionalized over Cov... 23:31 Jan 14 1 comments

Crisis in America: Deaths Up 40% Among Those Aged 18-64 Based on Life Insurance Claims for 2021 Afte... 23:16 Jan 06 0 comments

Protests over post-vaccination deaths spread across South Korea 23:18 Dec 26 0 comments

Chris Hedges: The execution of Julian Assange 22:19 Dec 19 1 comments

more >>

User Preferences

Feeds

Blog Feeds

The Saker

A bird's eye view of the vineyard

Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog. We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).

What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

Public Inquiry

Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail supporter? Anthony

Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland

Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

Why I?ve Never Read a Sally Rooney Novel and I?m Not Going to Start Now Mon Oct 14, 2024 17:19 | Steven Tucker
Even Sally Rooney's usual army of fans are tiring of her hyper-right-on schtick, if the review of her latest novel in the Times is anything to go by, says Steven Tucker. Time to rediscover Ireland's real literature.
The post Why I’ve Never Read a Sally Rooney Novel and I’m Not Going to Start Now appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Harris Pledges to Legalise Recreational Marijuana and Create ?Forgivable? Loans in Bid to Win Black ... Mon Oct 14, 2024 15:38 | Will Jones
Kamala Harris has pledged to legalise recreational marijuana and create "forgivable" loans in a bid to win black men's votes after Barack Obama said some "aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as President".
The post Harris Pledges to Legalise Recreational Marijuana and Create “Forgivable” Loans in Bid to Win Black Men’s Votes appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The Hezbollah Tunnel 100 Metres From a UN Base Mon Oct 14, 2024 13:10 | Will Jones
A Hezbollah tunnel has been found 100 metres from a UN peacekeeper base in Lebanon, raising questions about how the UN could be unaware of it and why UN troops are refusing to evacuate.
The post The Hezbollah Tunnel 100 Metres From a UN Base appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Baroness Royall, Leading Candidate in Oxford Chancellorship Race, Runs Into Free Speech Row Mon Oct 14, 2024 11:00 | Toby Young
Baroness Royall, one of the frontrunners in the Oxford Chancellorship race, has run into a free speech row after Alumni for Free Speech wrote to all the candidates asking them to set out their position on the issue.
The post Baroness Royall, Leading Candidate in Oxford Chancellorship Race, Runs Into Free Speech Row appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Open AI Wants to Build Data Centres That Would Consume More Electricity Per Year Than the Whole of t... Mon Oct 14, 2024 09:44 | David Turver
The Big Tech companies are setting up AI data centres that will consume vast amounts of electricity ? OpenAI alone wants to create seven that will consume more electricity per year than the UK. So much for Net Zero.
The post Open AI Wants to Build Data Centres That Would Consume More Electricity Per Year Than the Whole of the U.K. appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Ireland in breach of UN Forced Labour Convention

national | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Saturday February 20, 2016 10:07

by Vince McGreal

Report this post to the editors

In 1932, Ireland ratified the United Nations’ Convention Concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (1930). The Convention defines forced labour as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.”
Eighty-four years later, Ireland is in breach of that convention.

In 2012, Pathways to Work policy statement, largely copied from the UK, was adopted and signed, among others, by Enda Kenny and Joan Burton. Apart from providing training and education for the unemployed, which have been available long before 2012, the activation system offers them not real jobs but year-long JobBridge “internships” and “apprenticeships” as cleaners and porters. Such offers of practically unpaid (a little more than one euro an hour) work disguised as training now cannot be refused, because they are backed up with sanctions: it can be either a cut of €44 from the weekly €188, or even the suspension of payments for up to nine weeks, which exposes people to starvation, hypothermia and debt. These are the penalties for not volunteering to do unpaid work for businesses, or an analogue of community service on the Gateway and Tús schemes that include cleaning and renovating council-owned buildings and parks. One previously had to commit an offence to be sentenced to this!

Incredibly, this matter hasn’t yet become a major issue in the general election campaign. The mainstream politicians are seemingly happy to allow such treatment of their own countrymen to continue. We are about to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising, but the society plagued with forced labour is not exactly what the heroes of 1916 fought for. Officially, people pressed into doing unpaid work are classed as employed, so the unemployment rate falls. One may think that we are trying to imitate the Roman Empire where all were happily employed – as either slave owners or slaves.

Add Your Comments >>

printable version

with comments

atom feed of comments

rss feed of comments

RSS and atom feeds allow you to keep track of new comments on particular stories. You can input the URL's from these links into a rss reader and you will be informed whenever somebody posts a new comment.

Digg this

Furl

Reddit

Gab

Twitter

© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy