Press Release: Looney Welcomes Support for IT Tallaght Bus Shelter

Cllr Dermot Looney, a Labour Councillor for Tallaght Central, has welcomed the huge support from staff and students in IT Tallaght for a campaign to install a bus shelter at the main stop outside the college. The “Shelter from the Storm” campaign, which Cllr Looney is running with the newly-created IT Tallaght Labour Branch, has already achieved more than 150 signatures from students, staff and local residents who use the stop, as well as support from more than 200 Facebook users.

The bus stop on the Old Blessington Road serves the 54a, 65, 65b, 77 and 77a routes and caters for hundreds of passengers each day. The “Shelter from the Storm” campaign asks Dublin Bus to install a shelter at the site to protect passengers from inclement weather.

“This campaign is noteworthy for two reasons,” said Cllr Looney. “Firstly, the lack of shelter at this site is ridiculous when you consider the huge numbers of passengers using the stop on a daily basis. The only reason offered against providing a stop – cost – can be easily argued against.

Dublin Bus receive significant advertising revenue for these shelters and the provision of a large shelter will encourage more potential passengers to stay at the stop. I have been promoting the idea of a shelter at this site since I was selected as a candidate last year but the only real impetus has come about with the work of students in the college.”

“Secondly, this marks a welcome development in student activism at IT Tallaght. The Labour Branch have run this campaign with enthusiasm and professionalism, and I’ve no doubt that the activists there will play a hugely positive role in student politics and the local Labour Party in the years to come. There are plenty of bus shelters in UCD, Trinity and DIT – Tallaght deserves better, and with the work of these students in setting the agenda I am confident that Dublin Bus will respond positively.”

Adam Fulham, Vice-Chair and Campaigns Officer of IT Tallaght Labour, said, “the campaign is going really well so far and we have got great feedback from both students in the college and local people. The bus stop is a really busy one so it’s a wonder there isn’t a shelter yet.”

“On our first day of petitioning in ITT, we got over 100 signatures. The Students’ Union have shown a real interest in our idea and supported our campaign. I hope the campaign is successful because there is a real appetite for a shelter, especially with Irish weather!”

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Press Release - Looney Expresses Support for Students, Opposes Fees

Dermot Looney, Labour's candidate in June's local elections in Tallaght Central, has joined with local students and their families in opposing the re-introduction of third-level fees. He was speaking as about 15,000 students marched on the Dáil to demand the retention of the free fees initative. Looney, 26, began his political career as a student activist in UCD and played a part in the campaign which defeated proposals to reintroduce fees in 2003.

Looney has written to the officers of IT Tallaght Students' Union and the Union of Students in Ireland expressing his solidarity and has pledged to do all he can, if elected to the Council, to support students. The Greenhills-based candidate, who works as a primary school teacher in Tallaght, noted that the County Council retains control over student maintenance grants, while Councillors are also involved at VEC level and as members of governing bodies in higher institutions.

"I agree with USI when they point out that education is the only way out of this economic downturn for our young people - be they at primary, secondary or third level - or beyond," said Looney. "The Labour Party opposes the reintroduction of fees and wants to see investment at all levels of education be the fundamental basis for economic recovery."

"Labour was correct to bring in free fees in 1996. It enabled me and thousands of others from working class backgrounds the chance to go to college. As a socialist, I believe in free education across the levels because it is a basic human right and because it is the most liberating tool we as a society have."

"It is entirely dishonest to portray the reintroduction of fees as the rich paying and all others retaining a waiver of some sort. Instead, the very rich will continue their advantage while everyone else will be hit with costs running into tens of thousands of euro, the likelihood of crippling debt and the reality that many will simply not be able to afford it.

ENDS

Press Release - Tallaght’s Youth Saying “Yes We Can” to Change: Labour candidate Looney

Tallaght's Youth Saying "Yes We Can" to Change: Labour candidate Looney

Dermot Looney, the Labour Party candidate in Tallaght Central for next year's local election, has said that Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential election has given a huge boost to local young people who are demanding real political change. Looney, who worked on the Obama campaign in Virginia, was speaking after accepting a donation from Labour Youth at their annual conference in Limerick on November 8th.

Looney, the youngest candidate in the county yet declared at 26, has been a leading light in various student and youth campaigns over a number of years and has led the rejuvenation of Labour Youth in Dublin South West since joining the party in 2003.

A former Development Officer of UCD Students' Union, Looney is now working with students in Tallaght IT and young people across Tallaght, Greenhills and Templeogue in building a local Labour Youth organisation to campaign for what he has termed 'the real alternative' for the local area.

One of the key tools in their campaign is the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, a method used to great success in the recent US election, which has already attracted 250 local people to Looney's campaign group.

"I was lucky enough to spend a few days working on the Obama campaign in Virginia just prior to the election," Looney told the conference. "The inspiration and ideas generated by that campaign have resonated across the world, including the huge support and goodwill shown towards Obama by young people here at home."

"The model promoted by the Obama campaign can't be copied in an entirely different political landscape. But young people across Ireland who are desperate for real change have been inspired by the message of hope shining through in dark times."

"As well as being fired up by the idealism within the Obama campaign, young people are also looking for the change we need here at home – the change we need to break the politics of a long-gone Civil War, and the change we need in the issues which matter most to young people – jobs, education, health and housing."

Looney received a donation of €1,000 towards his campaign from Labour Youth's fundraising efforts at the Limerick conference, and asked the delegates to be positive about the change Labour's new generation can affect across Ireland. "Yes we can change Ireland and change the world. But the change we need begins here at home, and here in Tallaght Central we want to build on our success as the youngest election campaign in Ireland by growing our organisation and winning for ordinary people across the generations."

Looney, who will speak at an anti-fees meeting organised by IT Tallaght Labour in early December, has encouraged secondary school and college students, young workers and all local people under 26 to join with Labour Youth, which has seen its numbers boosted considerably in the recent economic and political tumult.

Press Release - Labour candidate Looney lashes Budget attacks on children & students

Dermot Looney, the Labour Party candidate in Tallaght Central for next year’s local election, has said that the Government’s budget, announced on October 14^th, is a “vicious right-wing assault on children and young people, and on the promise of the 1916 Proclamation to ‘cherish all the children of the nation equally.’”

Speaking at the AGM of the Willie Cremins Limekiln-Greenhills Branch of the Labour Party, Looney, a 26 year-old national schoolteacher, said that while the budget was rife with attacks on working people and the elderly, attacks on education were among the most despicable of all.

“I am lucky enough to teach in a fantastic school in Tallaght, but to ask teachers like myself to implement the new Curriculum with more than 30 pupils in class in this day and age is ludicrous,” said Looney.

“That the Government would make a u-turn on years of promises to cut class sizes, and instead decide to increase them, beggars belief. We will now have the largest class size out of the 27 EU countries. The 100,000 children in classes of 30 or more who are destined to years of underfunded, under-resourced education – and their parents and families - deserve so much better than Fianna Fáil and their cronies.”

“It is particularly sickening that children who need the most support are the targets of government. Gone are equipment and resource grants for resource teachers. Gone is €2.1 million from school libraries which promote literacy amongst children. Gone is an astonishing €4.3 million designated for supporting Traveller children. And gone is the implementation of the EPSEN Act, the 2004 promise to support special needs children both legally and with Special Needs assistants and teachers.”

Looney, who attended Greenhills College VEC and was a student campaigner in UCD and nationally, also noted the government’s cutbacks in second and third level. “The increase in class size at second level is similarly baffling, while the decision to lash third-level students in Tallaght IT and elsewhere with a massive €1500 registration fee is a regressive nonsense.”

“Students from working class backgrounds have been helped by Labour’s free fees initiative – I should know, as I was one of them. Instead we have pseudo-left arguments from Fianna Fáil, the same party who bail out bankers and speculators but target the vulnerable time and time again.”

“Labour stands for a different approach to education; publicly-funded, universal and the best in the world. And Tallaght Central deserves a Councillor who will stand up for education of all our children and young people.”