The Dublin Council of Trade Unions, in conjunction with the Youth Committee of the ICTU and in co-operation with the Health trade unions, inaugurated a ‘Campaign for a Decent Public Health Service’ some time last year.

The Campaign hoped to bring together those who work in the Health Service and their trade unions, with patients’ advocates, Health and Hospital campaigners, concerned Health professionals, community and voluntary organisations, the trade union movement in general and the general public to demand a civilised Health Service.

DCTV recorded the meeting as part of our The Document series.

They say this is a post-feminist era. That there’s no need for feminism anymore. What did feminism ever do for us? Is Feminism Really Necessary? Have you heard this lately? Has it made you wonder if the time for women-centred meetings is over? Or has it made you wonder if the time is right to begin again. The FOF features real debate and discussion. It’s a space to reflect with others on where our society is
headed and features contributers like;

AkiDwA, Ivana Bacik, Noreen Byrne, Grainne Healy, Sinead Kennedy, Mary McDermoTT, Elisa O’Donovan, Cathleen o’Neill, RAG, Ailbhe Smyth,
Anne Speed and others for plenty of debate.

It’s a new space for feminists to get together to share views and experiences, to discuss current political issues, and to strategise and plan actions for change. FOF plans to meet monthly and is open to everyone interested in feminist politics and activism. We’ll do our best in DCTV to keep these debates flowing into the homes of our viewers.

As part of The Document Series, we recorded former H-Block hunger strike and IWU organiser Tommy McKearney speaks at éirígí’s James Connolly commemoration in Arbour Hill, Dublin, 10 May 2008.

‘Flat Earth News’ by Nick Davies reveals that 54% of newspaper stories in the ‘quality’ broadsheets, ie. The Times, Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph are wholely or mainly constructed out of PR product and NOT, as many naive people believe, as the result of investigative journalism. In other words, the majority of stories which posters read in the papers before scurrying along to TiL to regurgitate what they have read, have been ‘placed’ by people like me. These stories are constructed by people who have a clear political or commercial interest to serve.  Nick Davies recently spoke in Dublin, and an Indymedia volunteer captured it for DCTV.

They say that if you can remember the 60’s you weren’t there. For most of 2008, people raked over the legacy of that flame of revolt from Vietnam, to the black ghettos and campuses of the states. But what of our own 1968? On 5 October 1968 an apparently small and unimportant civil rights march took place in the city of Derry. The march led by small numbers of socialists and Republicans proved to be the spark that set Northern Ireland alight.

Years later Eamonn McCann, one of the leaders of the march, provides an analysis of the beginnings of the struggle and its consequences.

Over 200 people packed into the Royal Dublin Hotel on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in early December for a public meeting on the topic ‘Democracy and Policing: How accountable are the Gardaí* to the Irish people?’ The meeting was addressed by: Larry Wheelock whose brother Terence died in suspicious circumstances in Store Street Garda Station in Dublin over two years ago (see Something rotten in Store Street in Workers Solidarity 99). John Monaghan from Rossport in Mayo whose community has been under constant Garda siege as a result of their resistance to Shell’s attempts to force an unsafe pipeline and refinery on them (a story which has been well documented in Workers Solidarity). John Maloney from Crumlin, Dublin whose son John died in suspicious circumstances after his arrest by Gardaí from Rathfarnham Garda Station in Dublin The meeting heard speaker after speaker from the floor recount their stories of Garda brutality and unaccountability. In giving people the forum in which to begin to address these questions the meeting served a very useful purpose. As part of DCTV’s “The Document” we bring that meeting and its pivotal questions around Garda treatment of particular communities into your home for some sharp relief.

Bob Doyle, passed away recently. He was the last remaining Irishman to have fought against Franco in the anti-fascist war in Spain, 1936-39. Brigadista is not only about that war, though. It is about B ob Doyle’s whole life. Born in 1916 into a poor Dublin family, after his mother was sent to an asylum he was handed over to nuns for upbringing at age five, on the harsh condition of no contact with his family. He describes the burning of Dublin’s Connolly house (headquarters of the Revolutionary Workers’ Groups) by a catholic mob (including himself) inflamed by an anti-semitic sermon in the pro-Cathedral. Under the influence of socialist and republican kit conway he joined the IRA and then the Republican Congress of 1934. Bob followed Kit Conway to fight in Spain ,where he fought and was captured along with Frank Ryan, expecting to be executed at any time.