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

Anti-Empire

North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

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

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic Christmas Appeal Mon Dec 23, 2024 07:00 | Toby Young
The Daily Sceptic's Christmas Appeal launches today ? an opportunity for readers to show their appreciation of the work we do. Remember, donating just ?5/month or ?50/year will give you access to a range of premium perks.
The post The Daily Sceptic Christmas Appeal appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

News Round-Up Mon Dec 23, 2024 01:12 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row Sun Dec 22, 2024 19:00 | Richard Eldred
Staff at the ?100 million Alan Turing Institute have erupted in protest over a diversity row, accusing leadership of "tokenistic" hiring and sparking fears that the organisation's credibility is at risk.
The post Staff at ?100 Million Alan Turing Institute Attack ?Chaotic? Management Amid Diversity Row appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? Sun Dec 22, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
Ireland's Chief Rabbi has blasted the country's leaders for fuelling antisemitism, leaving Jewish children hiding their identities and many others afraid to wear symbols of their faith.
The post ?Our Irish Leaders Have Contributed to Hatred Against Jews? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? Sun Dec 22, 2024 15:00 | Richard Eldred
Labour's "grocery tax" is set to punish British families, slapping an extra ?56 onto their shopping bills and driving up inflation, all in the name of Net Zero.
The post ?Grocery Tax? to Hike Britons? Shopping Bills by ?56 in Labour Net Zero ?Inflation Boost? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network

Voltaire, international edition

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en

Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en

How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en

Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en

Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en

Voltaire Network >>

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