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news report
Monday March 04, 2002 16:45
by Finghin
Motor Insurance Action Group
News from Dublin,Cork,Limerick and Tipperary plus an update on David Green's Campaign.
Car Insurance and the Road Accident Rates are seen as major issues now in
the General Election. Car Insurance was mentioned as one of the top six
issues on the phone in to Questions & Answers last week. The outgoing
Government is getting a lot of stick for its poor record on Road Safety and
Total In-Action on the Insurance issue.
MIJAG is continuing to take the issue to the Politicians on the run up to
the Election. The following is a report from around the Country on the work
being done.
Tipperary.
75 People turned up at the Public Meeting with Politicians in Clonmel last
Monday. Councillor Billy Shaw from the Clonmel Corporation is the Tipperary
organiser of the campaign. A Car Protest is to be organised in Clonmel as
soon as the General Election is called.
Cork.
The Cork Campaign has a Public Meeting with the Candidates invited. The
meeting is organised for Monday, April 8th in the Silver Springs Hotel. Kick
off is at 8pm.
Dublin.
The Dublin Campaign has a major Public Meeting Organised to take place in
the Green Isle Hotel on the Naas Road at 8pm on Thursday, April 11th. All
the Political Parties are being asked to send a spokesperson. We will be
targeting Mary Harney in Particular as the meeting is in her constituency
and is the same area David Green is running.
Limerick.
The Limerick Campaign was represented at the Tipperary meeting and are going
ahead to organise a meeting in Limerick. The details have yet to be
confirmed.
David Green.
Last but not least the MIJAG Candidate David Green has a good solid Campaign
now behind him. In the 4 weeks since the Election Campaign work began, an
Election Leaflet has been produced and distributed to almost 4,000 homes in
the Dublin Mid West Constituency. The 22 Pubs in the Clondalkin, Lucan and
Newcastle area have been leafleted on Saturday nights. The response in the
pubs has been great. Great from the punters that is. The Bouncers have been
the last ones to know what we were up to.
Every Shop, Cab Company, Video Shop, Chipper etc. in the area were asked to
leave David's election material on their counter and all bar a few agreed
without hesitation.
Money for the David Green Campaign has been coming in slow but steady at the
rate of 200 euro per week. If you have made a pledge please send a cheque to
the Campaign c/o 78, Whitechurch Way, Dublin 16.
If you would like to join our hard core of active members who turn out every
Saturday to do the Election Work just turn up outside the McDonalds in the
Car Park of the Mill Shopping Centre, Clondalkin on Saturday's at 6pm.
Leaflets are dropped in houses or shops from 6 to 8 and anyone who can stay
back hits a few of the pubs. Even if you can only do one or two nights
please come along. Every bit helps.
Cork Protest and Election Campaign Meeting.
The Cork Campaign has a Protest on Sunday March 10th starting from the
Ballyphehane Community Centre on Tory Top Road at 3pm. There will be a
discussion after the protest to discuss the work of the Campaign during the
General Election. Four options have already been discussed by the Cork
Committee. They are:- To Run a MIJAG Candidate in Cork, To Lobby
Politicians, To endorse Mick Barry the Cork Organiser who is a Candidate for
the Socialist Party in Cork, or finally not to endorse Mick Barry but to do
work for his Campaign. A decision will be made at the General Meeting to be
held after the Car Protest.
To a lot of our supporters the idea of endorsing a Party Candidate is
something they may not agree with. However that seems to be the course of
action favoured by the Campaign Committee in Cork. They do not feel able to
run a MIJAG Candidate. They want to do more than simply lobby Candidates.
Mick Barry is very prominent in Cork on the issue. Mick himself has argued
in favour of a cautious approach and does not want division in the Campaign
over this but does agree that the Campaign needs a focal point coming into
the Election. Supporters should be assured that all the options will be
fully considered before a decision is made.
The General Election in Dublin.
Young Drivers outside of Clondalkin and Lucan where David Green is standing
will be looking for ways to vent their anger on the issue. All the
Candidates should be given plenty of stick when they call to your door.
Leaflets explaining about the David Green case should be distributed outside
Dublin Mid-West but calling for support for local Candidates prominently
associated with the Campaign. I include Lisa Maher (MIJAG Chairperson in
Dublin) and myself in that.
Regards
Mick Murphy (National Organiser)
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Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6So, finally it has come to this: the so-called "Socialist" "Workers" Party is defending middle-class yuppies' rights to drive cars.
What about supporting genuinely proletarian transport like bicycles and buses?
What is the official position of the SWP on the use of cars in urban areas? Do they not care that deaths due to respiratory illness and vehicular impact disproportionately affect poorer children?
Will the SWP unveil its transport policy?
I thought you were one of the swoopers, you're one of the other left-over-left groups though aren't you? Sorry about that.
I am not a member of the SWP, but it is a mistake many make. I am in the Socialist Party, we are of course radically different from the SWP.
We believe in a planned fully integrated properly funded public transport system. We are supportive of public transport and oppose its sell off to privateers. The transport system is crazy, apart from a few QBCs the Bus service in Dublin is inadequate. People are forced to drive to work and spend many hours in cars especially those living in the new suburbs.
We are supportive of the MIJAG campaign as it opposes the car insurance rip off of young drivers. Young drivers are blatently being discriminated against by large multinational insurance industries because of their age. Many critisise us for supporting this campaign because it encourages people to drive cars instead of using public transport. This critisism does not take into account the realities of the Irish transport system. The fact is that a proper public transport system does not exist in Ireland at the moment people are dependent on their cars. It is not a middle clas campaign, it is very much a working class campaign. Middle classes can afford the car insurance, young workers that need their cars to get to work can not afford it. The high insurance hits working class harder than the middle class.
The reason that insurance companies are charging young drivers more is because of actuarial statistics that show that they are more likely to mow down pedestrians than older folk. They are also more likely to kill cyclists. They are also more likely to kill other motorists.
Socialist Youth is allying itself with a small sub-section of the working class: those that are wealth enough to own a car and pay for the petrol and repairs. The rest of us just have to lump it on the buses and on our bicycles while you effers swan around town spewing out fumes.
When you add to this that the current murder of Iraqi and Afghani and U'wa and Ogoni that is *directly stimulated* by your purchase of a litre then all you are is a marketing branch of the worst of Capitalism.
Yez can go eff yourself ya plonkers.
Hmmm, interesting debate.
On the SWP position on public transport versus private cars, maybe this article from the UK Socialist Worker may clarify things.
Traffic chaos- are charges the solution?
By Helen Shooter
THE TRAFFIC chaos in London is getting worse by the month. The rush hour used to be an hour, but today it stretches for most of the day. The choked roads mean misery for commuters battling to get to work. Pollution from exhaust fumes plays a major role in the rising levels of asthma in children. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for children aged one to 14 years old.
Many people are desperate for a solution. This is the feeling that London mayor Ken Livingstone is using to introduce "congestion charges". These mean most people driving into central London on a weekday from February next year will have to pay a £5 daily levy or face a fine running up to £120. The scheme will cost £600 million to set up.
Those in favour of congestion charges range from people rightly concerned about pollution's impact on the environment through to the bosses' CBI organisation. The opposition to the charges is mainly driven by people who advocate car use whatever the impact on anyone else. But Livingstone's plan does have fundamental flaws. He admits the charges will only force a limited number of people-15 percent at the most-to stop using their cars.
These are most likely to be the poorest in society. Big business is the biggest polluter. The plans do not confront the key question of business executives and managers having free parking at their workplaces in central London. The wealthy driver will find the charges a minor inconvenience. But for most people it means massive extra costs.
A worker having to use their car to get from home in south London to work in inner north London would have to travel through the charge zone. The annual estimate for the charges is around £1,200 a year.
A worker on the minimum wage driving into central London would pay on average £25 a week out of a pay packet of £140 a week. The congestion charges will end up creating new traffic jams and increased pollution in communities around the edges of the charging zone. Traffic is likely to pile up across Vauxhall Bridge so drivers can cross the Thames without paying.
What alternative travel can people who give up their cars use? London's tube is already crammed full with passengers, and tube lines are constantly halted because of signal problems. Livingstone says his improvements on London Underground will be held up for at least seven years because the government is insisting on privatising the tube. Under the contract private firms can deliver a 5 percent worse service on the underground.
So Livingstone is aiming to lure car users onto the buses. There are now more buses in London than at any time since 1965. Yet for many people it is not a practical way to get to work. The bus lanes provide little relief from the clogged roads, as buses have to weave in and out of the main flow of traffic. Bus users regularly face long waits between buses or the arrival of several buses at once, depending on how congested the roads are.
One in five rush hour car journeys are parents taking their children to school. For many parents switching to the bus or tube would not allow them to drop off their children and get to work on time. There is a solution to the traffic chaos in London and other major cities, but it means tackling the cause of the problem. It would mean challenging the pro-privatisation and big business policies of the New Labour government. Renationalising the train and bus industries and stopping the privatisation of the tube is the first step.
Free 24-hour public transport use for everybody would go a long way to reducing the use of the car. Rationing car use would have a positive impact on everyone's lives, but it should be done on the basis of need, not ability to pay. Re-establishing comprehensive education and smaller local schools would cut down on car journeys.
Creating local decently paid jobs with good quality housing, stopping the growing centralisation of hospitals and restoring hospitals in local areas would also reduce the need for people to travel. All of this would improve the quality of people's lives dramatically and improve London's transport system.
The Socialist Alliance plans to campaign around these policies, and others, in the May local elections in London and around the country.
Interesting article, thanks for posting it. I agree that "charges" for all these things is bollox and mostly affects the poor. It's like the bin-tax or poll-tax. But in the case of cars it doesn't hold that making them cheaper for everyone has good effects on the working class. On the contrary it affects us very badly.
What Finghin and his buddies are doing is dividing the working class, and they are choosing to ally themselves with the most privileged section of that class. Those that can afford cars.
If Finghin or the SWP or anyone else wants to campaign on the basis of making public transport that I can use available NOW then I'll join them in that campaign.
As it is I'm on my bike and I will likely be mown down by one of the drivers that Finghin is helping to put on the road.
I note that Socialist Youth calls for free bus passes for students. Fair balls to them. But I'm not a student either.
Unless Socialist Youth is actively organizing to support cyclists and bus/DART riders then they're effectively campaigning against them by encouraging people away from those options.
So, what do we get? More pollution more deaths of working people, more of our money going into the de-regulated free-market of individual transport by cars.
What a rip off. Not very socialist.