06/05/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Our over-worked working life

THERE is a growing interest in reducing the working week – usually expressed as a four- day week.

Numerous ad hoc examples of private and public sector companies and agencies appear in the media while, here in Ireland, Fórsa recently held a conference dedicated to reducing the working week.

The arguments for a shorter working week range from greater work/life balance, productivity, stress reduction, preparing for the impact of automation, etc. As part of that debate below is some information on how many hours per year people work in Ireland in comparison with our EU peer group (other high-income economies).

This data focuses on full-time employees but it should be noted that full-time is defined as approximately 30 hours by the CSO with possible different definitions in other countries. Further, this looks at the private sector as this is where the introduction of a shorter working week on the same rate of pay will be the most challenging.

Private sector economy

In the private sector economy Irish employees work more hours than most other peer group countries.

The UK and the Netherlands report higher annual working hours. The Netherlands is an interesting case. It has the highest level of part-time workers with 50% of all employees working part-time com- pared to an average of less than 25% in other countries.

Annual working hours can be reduced in many ways – not just through a shorter working week. For instance, public holidays, statutory annual holidays and additional holiday hours resulting from collective agreements in the workplace can reduce annual hours worked.

In total, Irish employees work the equivalent of 2.7 weeks more than our peer-group average, assuming a basic 39-hour working week (the UK is not included in our EU peer group for obvious rea- sons; Eurostat is already removing the UK from EU averages).

We don’t work the most, but we work more than most in our peer group.

Working hours by sector

The following looks at sectoral breakdowns. Let’s start with the high working-hour sectors.

  • Irish construction employees work more hours than any other sector, and 15% more than our peer group average – 248 hours annually, or the equivalent of 6.4 weeks more per year. A possible contributor to this high level of working could be the emerging labour shortage in the sector.
  • Irish manufacturing employees work 11% more than our peer group – 175 hours annually, or the equivalent of 4.5 weeks more per year.

Turning to medium-high working-hour sectors we find the following:

  • Irish transport employees work 8% more than our peer group – 132 hours annually, or the equivalent of 3.4 weeks more per year.
  • Irish wholesale/retail employees work 6% more than our peer group – 106 hours annually, or the equivalent of 2.7 weeks more per year.
  • Irish communication and information employees work 2% more than our peer group – 37 hours annually, or the equivalent of nearly one week per year.
  • Irish financial services employees work 5% more than our peer group – 76 hours annually, or the equivalent of nearly two weeks per year.

Finally, let’s look at relatively low working-hour sectors:

  • Irish professional and technical employees work 1% more than our peer group – 11 hours annually, or the equivalent of less than two days per year.
  • Irish administrative service employees work marginally less than our peer group – less than half-a-day per year.
  • Irish hospitality employees work 3% less than our peer group – 53 hours less, or the equivalent of 1.4 weeks per year.

It should be noted that the hospitality sector is likely to have high levels of precariousness.

The problem here may be that full-time employees don’t get enough work.

It’s bad enough that we are over-worked compared to our peer group. But we also get fewer paid days off.

Annually, Irish workers get 88 fewer hours paid without working than our peer group average.

That’s the equivalent of 2.3 weeks fewer paid public holidays, annual holiday leave, etc.

Some might say this is the price we must pay to have a strong economy. However, other economies with far fewer working days and more paid days off have just as strong economies.

Belgium, which has the lowest annual hours worked and the highest number of paid days off, has the highest GDP per person employed (factoring in living costs).

On the other hand, the UK has the highest working hours and the fewest paid days off. Yet they are at the bottom. Ireland, while ranking third, is clumped together with a number of other countries which have fewer working hours and more paid days off.

In short, working more doesn’t guarantee higher output.

Hopefully the debate over the future of the working week will gather pace. But one thing is for sure. Irish workers are already over-worked. What we need is fewer working hours and more paid time off. Now.

 

 

29/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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SIPTU representatives raise concerns on proposed staffing model for the National Children’s Hospital

SIPTU representatives have today raised concerns that the formula used to determine safe staffing levels for the new National Children’s Hospital could potentially lead to a shortfall of almost 400 nursing posts.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: “The National Children’s Hospital Workforce Framework Report, due to be launched on Wednesday (1st May), will raise a number of issues which are of deep concern. The proposed methodology used to determine the nursing workforce has not been subject to robust examination and external expert scrutiny. The recommended formula for calculating the nurse to health care assistant ratio is proposed at 90:10. This will mean, if the report is accepted, that when the hospital opens its doors there will be an immediate shortfall of just under 400 nursing posts due to this ratio alone. That is unacceptable for staff, for the children of Ireland and their families.”

“SIPTU representatives have also based our concerns by noting the findings of the Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix in General and Specialist Medical and Surgical Care Settings in Ireland. Launched last year by the Minister for Health, Simon Harris, the report recommended a safe staffing skill-mix of 80:20 for adult surgical and medical wards. While adult and paediatric services are different on a number of grounds, SIPTU representatives highlighted the extensive international and national research undertaken in order to establish and recommend the safe staffing levels for acute adult surgical/medical areas and raised concerns on the apparent omission of a similar process for the National Children’s Hospital.”

“As a key stakeholder on the National Nursing Workforce Planning Group for the new National Children’s Hospital, SIPTU representatives have consistently sought assurances on any proposed safe staffing skill-mix model. The ratio of 90:10 proposed between nurses and health care assistants is at variance with a model of 70:30 in the UK for similar services in that jurisdiction. There is a responsibility on the Department of Health and Health Service Executive to explain this, and to provide evidence supporting their proposals as an international standard for safe care. Modern healthcare is made up of a multi-disciplinary team with responsibility allocated appropriate to the grade, qualification and training of the staff concerned.”

He added: “There is a very real chance the high ratio proposed is not achievable given that 400 nursing vacancies will arise immediately on acceptance of the report. Aside from the fact such large numbers of qualified paediatric nurses may not be available for hire, significant costs will arise if the staffing skill-mix model is inconsistent with international best practice and norms. The proposed skill-mix is also inconsistent with a previous report from the HSE. A National Model of Care for Paediatric Healthcare Services in Ireland. Published in 2015, the report recommended that: “The role of the health care assistant (HCA) should be developed to support paediatric care delivery and the paediatric workforce should work in an integrated way to maximise opportunities for greater quality of care to children and their families.”

SIPTU Industrial Organiser John McCamley said: “It is important that safe staffing in any healthcare facility is based on clinical need, established evidence and international best practice. As members of the steering group for the National Nursing Workforce Planning Group for the new National Children’s Hospital, SIPTU representatives cannot stand over the report until a number of fundamental questions are answered.”

28/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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“Remember the dead; fight like hell for the living”

The Occupational Safety and Health Act in the US became legally effective on April 28th 1971.

This significant piece of legislation sought to ensure that employers provide employees with an environment free from recognized hazards, such as exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, or unsanitary conditions.

The American trade union confederation, AFL-CIO, used the passing of the Act to declare that 28 April should be marked as a commemorative day for those who had died or been injured at work. In 1984, the Canadian Union of Public Employees did the same in Canada. This led, in 1991, to the Canadian federal government declaring April 28 to be a National Day of Mourning.

Various official commemorations are held to this day, and the Canadian flag is flown at half-mast from sunrise to sunset on all federal government buildings.

The idea has spread globally over the years and up to 80 countries now mark Workers’ Memorial Day, many of them with official recognition by the state. Everywhere, the purpose is the same. We seek to commemorate those who have died or been injured because of their work.

While every year we still have too many people who die in accidents at work – 37 died in 2018 in the Republic – many more are affected by occupational illnesses.

Some of these prove fatal while countless others suffer from both physical and psychosocial disorders arising from their work. Alongside our commemoration therefore, we also try to use the day to create awareness and to commit ourselves to creating safer workplaces.  This is why we use the motto based on the words of Cork-born Mary “Mother” Jones – Remember the dead; fight like hell for the living.

Trade unions have been the crucial force in the past in protecting workers and raising the bar to ensure people can return home safe and well after their day’s work.

There is no room for complacency and we need to continue this work.

27/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Video: For fairness, respect and action. Vote Yes.

This week, SIPTU Health representatives begun balloting our members in the health service in a dispute over the implementation of a long standing job evaluation process.

Here our members in Tipperary explain why they voted YES for respect, for fairness and to take action.

Balloting continues next week…

22/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Balloting begins today

Up to 17,000 hospital support workers are being balloted from today on strike action.

The dispute centres on the implementation of a job evaluation scheme. Health Care Assistants, chefs and other support grades will vote on industrial action over the coming weeks.

SIPTU Health Division Organiser Paul Bell: “The strike ballot will take place in 36 acute hospitals throughout the State, commencing today and concluding on May 17th.

“There are other workers who have now become involved in this matter because they would see that the Government have tried to renege on an agreement which is an integral part of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, which they supported in a secret ballot.”

Listen back to podcast here

21/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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How 1916 changed the world

John Redmond, rallying Irish men to the British war effort, was thinking only in terms of the impact on Irish-British politics of such recruitment. He seems to have been entirely unaware that the first World War was a contest between empires for the control of resources, for the extension of imperial powers, and that he was recruiting Irish men to support and bolster imperial ambitions and greed.

Or perhaps he knew but didn’t think it was important. A similar charge, however, can be laid at the door of the IRB and the Irish Volunteers — they failed entirely to consider (and potentially profit from) the international context of the insurrection. Only James Connolly fully understood that Ireland’s struggle against Britain was a struggle against empire.

In the Workers’ Republic, on 8th April 1916, 16 days before the Rising, Connolly wrote:

The power which holds in subjection more of the world’s population than any other power on the globe, and holds them in subjection as slaves without any guarantee of freedom or power of self-government, this power that sets Catholic against Protestant, the Hindu against the Mohammedan, the yellow man against the brown, and keeps them quarrelling with each other whilst she robs and murders them all — this power appeals to Ireland to send her sons to fight under England’s banner for the cause of the oppressed. The power whose rule in Ireland has made of Ireland a desert, and made the history of our race read like the records of a shambles, as she plans for the annihilation of another race appeals to our manhood to fight for her because of our sympathy for the suffering, and of our hatred of oppression

Connolly’s point here was that Ireland was neither alone nor unique in suffering under empire, and by and large, until very recently, Irish commentators have failed to place Ireland’s struggle in this international context.

Paradoxically, all across the world, the Irish Rising, and subsequent War of Independence, had a galvanising and morale-building influence on contemporary and subsequent independence movements.

In an excellent article on this very subject Liam Ó Ruairc argues that: “The 1916 Easter Rising had a very significant impact and influence on antiimperialist movements worldwide, at the time particularly on those in India and Egypt.”

The British were well aware of the consequences of losing Ireland, consequences that were not always clear to most of those Irish fighting for independence. Ó Ruairc quotes Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, saying on 30th March 1921: “If we lose Ireland we have lost the Empire.”

And, Sir Edward Carson: “If you tell your Empire in India, in Egypt, and all over the world that you have not got the men, the money, the pluck, the inclination and the backing to restore order in a country within 20 miles of your own shore, you may as well begin to abandon the attempt to make British rule prevail throughout the Empire at all.”

The fact is the Rising signalled, perhaps even began, the process of disintegration in the British empire — but this has not always been acknowledged in Ireland, and in certain sectors, I suspect, remains an unwelcome thought. There has always been a double pulse in Irish political life.

On the one hand we find a servile tendency on the part of political elites to seek the approval and patronage of larger powers, exemplified in the acceptance of direction from the ECB, for example, or the unwillingness to assert our sovereignty in the matter of US troop movements, and renditions, through Shannon.

On the other hand, there is a generous willingness on the part of non-State formations to identify with and support liberation movements, social and political, throughout the post-colonial world.

It would do us no harm at all to consider the international context and consequences of the Rising, and to ask ourselves where we place ourselves now in the ongoing contests between great powers and sovereign peoples.

19/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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SIPTU Nursing Midwifery – National Talks update

This is an important update for SIPTU members regarding recent national nursing talks.

Members will be aware the Labour Court has recently issued a second recommendation dealing exclusively with key issues of dispute with the proposed contract for Enhanced Nurse or Midwife within General/ID/Care of the Older Person.

This includes reference to Senior Staff Nurse/Midwife. This document is available here.

  • The recommendation from the Labour Court has provided alternative wording for the draft contract and other related claims such as: location, rosters, duties, qualifying criteria and effect on nurses or midwives who do not accept the new contract but who are a new entrant since 2011.
  • In addition, following issue of the Labour Court recommendation, the Department of Health has forwarded a revised draft contract for General/ID/Care of the Older Person. This document is available here.
  • The new draft contract provides the revised wording recommended by the Labour Court and expressly outlines the required level of flexibility on appointment re: Locations and Rosters. Please find a recent SIPTU update issued on this issue here.
  • Following receipt of the revised draft contract for Enhanced Nurse or Midwife, SIPTU has been advised by the Department of Health, an explanatory document is being prepared by employers to outline the various elements of the contract including the required level of flexibility regarding location and rosters expected of enhanced nurses or midwives.
  • As stated, the above-mentioned draft contract does not refer to Mental Health. Specific discussions regarding mental health services will continue over the coming weeks to advance all matters relating to a proposed contract for Enhanced Nursing within that service. We will seek to keep members appraised of developments.
  • The proposed contract for Enhanced Nurse or Midwife will only be an option for the grades of staff nurse/midwife or senior staff nurse/midwife. A template pay scale for the proposed Enhanced Nurse or Midwife & Senior Enhanced Nurse or Midwife is available overleaf.
  • Proposals outline all other nursing/midwifery grades will be subject to an Expert Review. The Terms of Reference, including timeframe, for this proposed review have not yet been completed. SIPTU is awaiting receipt of same.

In summary, SIPTU has committed to bring the full detail of proposals to our members for consideration following receipt of same. To date, we have received a draft contract for Enhanced Nurse or Midwife within General/ID/Care of the Older Person. We have not received the explanatory document from the employer which we believe is crucial for any nurse or midwife considering the merit of the proposed new contract. SIPTU is also awaiting receipt of the Terms of Reference for the proposed Expert Review for promoted nurse and midwife grades.

Equally, it is essential that all negotiations are completed prior to SIPTU considering appropriate next steps including consultation with our membership.

This will require the completion of the outstanding process regarding Mental Health which remains underway.

Proposed Pay Scale & Pathway for Enhanced Nurse/Midwife (rates are as 01/04/2019)

Existing pay scale for Staff Nurse

  1. 29,346 (point 2 after 16 weeks)
  2. 31,110 (move to next point on annual increment date and each year thereafter. Existing point 2 will be skipped in future pay scales. Nurses or Midwives who do not undertake the Enhanced Nurse or Midwife role will proceed up this scale from point 3 after 16 weeks on point 1 above. Each increment will be applied annually as per existing practice.)
  3. 32,171
  4. 33,367
  5. 34,876
  6. 36,383
  7. 37,883
  8. 39,180
  9. 40,480
  10. 41,775
  11. 43,070
  12. 44,343
  13. 45,701 LSI

Proposed Pay Scale for Enhanced Nurse

  1. 29,346 (move to point 2 after 16 weeks)
  2. 32,171 (move to point 3 after 12 months)

Access to Enhanced Scale after 12 months on Point 2 subject to meeting Qualifying Criteria

  1. 35,806
  2. 38,062
  3. 39,265
  4. 40,191
  5. 41,212
  6. 42,570
  7. 43,893
  8. 45,841
  9. 47,201 LSI

ExistingSenior Staff Nurse Pay Scale

  1. 47,898

EnhancedSenior Staff Nurse Pay Scale (subject to meeting Qualifying Criteria) 

  1. 49,471

Access to Senior Staff Nurse grade is reduced from 20 years verifiable service to 17 years verifiable service as per recommendations of the Public Service Pay Commission published in 2018. Access to the Enhanced Senior Staff Nurse grade will be determined by meeting relevant qualifying criteria including: verifiable service and terms & conditions associated with the post.

Location & Qualification Allowances:

Current rates of the above allowances increased by 20% as per recommendations of the Public Service Pay Commission published in 2018. Extension for access to the allowances to include Maternity Services. Department of Health has advised SIPTU the proposed extension for access to these allowances to Medical/Surgical wards is subject to a total funding cap of €10million.

Existing rate of Specialist Qualification Allowance: €2,703

Proposed New rate of Specialist Qualification Allowance (subject to meeting criteria): €3,243.60

Existing rate of Location Allowance: €1,800

Proposed New rate of Location Allowance (subject to meeting criteria): €2,160

*Above mentioned allowances are as per qualifying criteria and rules for payment as set out within relevant Department of Health and Health Service Executive Circulars.

______________________________________

** Specific Pay Scales will be developed for Mental Health Services following completion of service specific talks with the Department of Health, Health Service Executive and Department of Public Expenditure & Reform**

 

Disclaimer

The update relating to pay rates and allowances provided within this document is based on existing information available to SIPTU at the time of publication. SIPTU does not accept responsibility for the accuracy of the information provided and reserves the right to amend, alter or remove same at any time in the future. The information relating to pay rates and allowances is subject to qualifying criteria and acceptance of same by the applicant nurse or midwife. This update is provided for information purposes only and does not infer or confirm any contractual employment rights on any individual. This update is advanced in good faith and is deemed to be accepted on this basis. The update is for information sharing on a ‘without prejudice’ basis. The update does not remove the right of SIPTU to advance any collective industrial relations issues relating to the information provided which it deems fitting and appropriate to the body of its membership.

 

18/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Section 39 employers set to miss deadline for pay restoration

SIPTU representatives held discussions today (Thursday 18thApril) with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Department of Health on the implementation of pay restoration for thousands of Section 39 workers. Talks have now adjourned until Friday 10th May.

SIPTU Divisional Organiser Paul Bell said: “Following these discussions it is clear that the date (Tuesday, 30th April) for implementing pay restoration as agreed with the Government, will not be met by all Section 39 organisations. In some cases, employers have not submitted all the data required by the HSE and in other cases the data provided is not incomplete. Our members believe that this is unacceptable and are rightly outraged by this failure by management to pay them what they are owed, on time, and in full.”

He added: “Out of the 50 Section 39 organisations who agreed to pay our members what they are owed, only ten have submitted acceptable data. Each of these ten organisations will receive a letter from the HSE within the month of May confirming monies to pay the restoration due to our members. The remaining 40 organisations will be engaged by the HSE for the purpose of completing the data and oversight process.”

He added: “We want our members to know that we have challenged the HSE and Department of Health on their approach and how it is a clear breach of the agreement. While our charge is accepted by the employers, the deadline for pay restoration will not be met. However, the effective payment date remains as agreed. SIPTU representatives will be fighting to ensure our members are backdated their money from that date (Tuesday, 30th April). Section 39 Home Help and Community Care organisations based in Dublin will be addressed in a parallel engagement under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission in the coming days.”

Further updates will be made available on the SIPTU Health App.

15/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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SIPTU extends ballot for strike action to all members in health service support grades

SIPTU Health will begin balloting up to 17,000 members working as Health Care Assistants, Chefs, Laboratory Aides, Theatre Operatives and in other support grades including those working in catering, household, portering, patient transport and security services, for strike action in 36 major hospitals from next Monday (22nd April).

SIPTU Health Division Organiser, Paul Bell, said: “The move to extend the ballot for strike action from selected hospitals to include all members in support grades follows a meeting of the SIPTU Health Support Sector Committee on Thursday (11th April).

“It is clear that tensions have been heightened by the recent HSE decision to introduce an overtime ban and announce a three month recruitment embargo, putting additional pressure on staff. Our members have played by the rules and waited since 2015 for the Government to honour, in full, a job evaluation process that was negotiated as part of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.”

He added: “The members of the SIPTU Health Support Sector Committee believe that the totality of the job evaluation scheme is now compromised. Our members’ confidence in the Public Service Stability Agreement has also been severely undermined and they are actively questioning its future.”

The result of the ballot will be announced on Thursday 16th May.

Updates and balloting schedules will be available on the SIPTU Health App.

List of hospitals to be balloted

  • Cork University Hospital
  • Cork University Maternity Hospital
  • Kerry University Hospital
  • Mallow General Hospital
  • South Infirmary Hospital Cork
  • South Tipperary General Hospital
  • Wexford General Hospital
  • St Luke’s Hospital Carlow/Kilkenny
  • Mercy Hospital Cork
  • Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown
  • National Rehabilitation Hospital
  • Beaumont Hospital
  • St Ita’s Portrane
  • Mater Hospital
  • St James Hospital
  • St Vincent’s University Hospital
  • Tallaght Hospital
  • Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda
  • Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin
  • Rotunda Hospital
  • Central Mental Hospital
  • Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar
  • Midland Regional Hospital Tullamore
  • Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise
  • Naas General Hospital
  • Cavan General Hospital
  • Letterkenny University Hospital
  • Sligo General Hospital
  • Roscommon Hospital
  • Portiuncula Hospital Ballinasloe
  • Galway University Hospital
  • Merlin Park
  • Mayo University Hospital
  • UL Hospital Dooradoyle
  • UL Maternity Hospital
  • UL Orthopaedic Hospital Croom
13/04/2019 Comments are off SIPTU Health
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Raise the Roof for more public housing

Private rental costs are spiralling, the official number of homeless people is now over 10,000 including more than 3000 children, and the Government has failed to reach any of the building targets for public housing it set out in its Rebuilding Ireland plan almost three years ago.

New figures suggest that people in the private rental market are paying at least 27% of their monthly income for a roof over their heads with some in the major cities coughing up more than 40%. Meanwhile the so called ‘rent cap’ is being widely breached. For most people on modest or low incomes this leaves little or no money to meet every day needs, not to mind the cost of childcare or other necessities.

In a further blow to the credibility of government claims to have developed a sustainable housing policy, house prices have jumped by 8% in Dublin and 6% state-wide over the past year, making it more difficult for people even on higher incomes to purchase a home.

Then arrived a scathing letter to the Government in late March in which two respected UN investigators criticised the paucity of public housing programmes since 2008 and before. The letter from Surya Deva, chief rapporteur of the UN working group on human rights and transnational corporations and Leilani Farha, special rapporteur on adequate housing, is also a detailed critique of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and its role in what the authors term the ‘financialisation of housing’ in Ireland.

They claimed that over 90 per cent of loans sold by NAMA, since its inception in 2009, have gone to international, mainly US funds. It further stated that NAMA and the introduction of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) as well as the sale of non-performing loans by State controlled banks, have contributed directly to the housing and homeless emergency.

“Our chief concern lies with those laws and policies which have allowed unprecedented amounts of global capital to be invested in housing as security for financial instruments that are traded on global markets, and as a means of accumulating wealth,” the letter from Deva and Farha asserts.

“This expanding role and unprecedented dominance of unregulated financial markets and corporations in the housing sector is now generally referred to as the ‘financialisation of housing’ and it is having devastating consequences for tenants. Contrary to international human rights obligations, investment in housing in the Republic of Ireland has disconnected housing from its core social purpose of providing people with a place to live in with security and dignity.”

 

The root cause of the State’s failure to deliver decent, affordable housing is the blind allegiance of the main right-wing parties, and the well-endowed interests that support them, to the notion that private builders and developers, including global investment funds, will supply the number of homes required to meet demand.

This ideological myopia flies in the face of reality but it also masks the deeper malaise in housing policy over several decades which has arisen over the decision to abandon the traditional role of the State through its local authorities to deliver social and affordable housing.

It is widely accepted that the Government must invest some €2.5 billion each year over the next ten years to meet the needs of those on the social housing list and others on low and middle incomes who require affordable homes. It is no accident that this is close to the amount put into the pockets of landlords through the HAP scheme and private builders and developers each year by the State.

Although this level of investment was endorsed by a majority Dáil vote in October last year, the Fine Gael led government, after confidence and supply discussions with Fianna Fáil, refused to make provision for the amount required in Budget 2019. This, despite the support given by Fianna Fáil TD’s to the opposition motion calling for this scale of investment as well as an end to forced evictions, proper rent controls and for the right to housing to be incorporated in law or in the Constitution.

These are the demands of the Raise the Roof campaign which involves trade unions, progressive parties women’s and students organisations as well as housing activist, NGO’s and community groups across the country. The campaign held its first rally at Leinster House, Dublin on 3rd October 2018 when the Dáil motion was debated.

The Raise the Roof campaign has also held rallies in Cork in January and in Galway on Monday 8th April to coincide with similar motions at local authority meetings in the two cities and is planning a national rally in Dublin on Saturday, 18th May. SIPTU District Councils have also organised seminars to highlight the housing emergency across the country in recent weeks.

It is vital that SIPTU members as well as the broad mass of people who are affected by the housing emergency, whose family members and friends are also struggling to make ends meet on low and precarious earnings and keep a decent roof over their heads, support this campaign and rally. Only a radical change in government policy can solve the housing emergency.

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