A new report entitled "Workplace Climate in the Defence Forces Phase Two: Results of the Focus Group Research" published by academics from the University of Limerick and based on information provided by 600 Defence Forces personnel between Nov 2016 and Jan 2017 has led to calls for pay increases for the Defence Forces and for them to have full trade union rights.

The latest banking scandal has led to calls for a criminal investigation into potential fraud by the banks. It has emerged tens of thousands of families were wrongfully removed from, or not offered, tracker mortgage interest rates costing them thousands of Euro. Now Solidarity has called for action against what they have called a 'banksters cartel'.

Fianna Fail and the government have been accused of trying to leave a 'back door open' for the possible return of water charges ahead of a vote on the Water Services Bill 2017.

The Bill will officially end the water charges regime which was introduced a number of years ago, it will also allow for a refunds to be paid to those who paid their charges. However, campaigners say that a proposed 'excessive usage charge' is an attempt to keep water charges on the agenda despite the mass movement of non-payment and protest.

Ireland could face more severe weather threats like Hurricane Ophelia as a result of climate change, it has been warned. Last week the Citizens Assembly was told that ireland has to preapre for "a 30% increase in rainfall and floods". This has lead to calls from Solidarity for major "investment now... to prepare for further extreme weather events in the future".

In moving over from our old website to the new one we haven't transferred our old news updates/blog, however that meant that a number of important documents aren't available anymore, so we have re-uploaded them here:

In an interview in today's Irish Times Fingal County Council CEO Paul Reid talked about the difficulty the council is having finding buildings to turn into 'hubs' for the homeless. One such hub cost over €4.5m, but has been described as a "short-term sticking plaster" by Solidarity public reps for the Fingal area. They have called for "radical change" in housing strategy, and "a programme of public home building".