GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL BUNDORAN, CO DONEGAL July 3 – 6, 2007 Tuesday 3 July Morning Session Opening of Conference 9.30 – 11.30 Playing of DVD of Irish Ferries March Peter McLoone, IMPACT & President of Congress Delegates, you are all very welcome to Bundoran on the occasion of our Biennial Conference. I know that the hall is a bit cramped but we are hoping that you will at least find it intimate. As a courtesy, as always, we will ask people to check before we get proceedings underway that mobile phones are switched off or at least switched to the silent mode and we would ask people if they are leaving the hall to, as a courtesy to speakers, not to engage in conversation until you are outside. We are going to get proceedings underway by inviting a number of people to issue addresses of welcome. I call firstly on the Chairperson of Bundoran Urban District Council, Mr Billy Mulherne, to address. Billy, you are very welcome. Mr Billy Mulherne, Chairperson of Bundoran Urban Council Mr President, General Secretary, ladies, Gents, delegates – Cead Mile Failte. I would like to welcome you all to Bundoran here and to the Great Northern Hotel and the people of Bundoran Council. I am a wee bit nervous. I have just got into politics and this is my first duty as Chairperson of Bundoran Council. I think, if I remember, that this is the third conference and there has been a lot of changes in Bundoran here. I hope you enjoy it. We have a load of amenities here for you – water facilities and if the weather changes I hope you can enjoy some of them. The conference itself is a great asset to Bundoran, to the place of Bundoran and the people of Bundoran and it advertises Bundoran. We are grateful to see you here and we hope you have a wonderful time. I am not going to keep you as I am a wee bit nervous, ok. So, that is all I am going to say – welcome to Bundoran here and I hope you have a great time. I now invite PJ Hannon from the Letterkenny Trades Council to address Conference. PJ Hannon, Letterkenny Trades Council Mr President, fellow delegates, distinguished guests and observers, I am both pleased and honoured to welcome you to Bundoran today to Delegate Conference 07, on behalf of Letterkenny Trades Council. I hope you all, each and everyone of you, especially all of you in the North West, where there is a long and proud tradition of trade unionism. This conference is an important part of the democratic process, the traditions and procedures of the trade union movement. It allows us as representatives to reflect upon, discuss, debate and highlight issues to our members. These issues are clearly outlined in the range of motions on the agenda of the conference. We live in times of economic prosperity – so called full employment, strong immigration, strong services employment and high levels of productivity. The public finances are in a very good state of health. However, all is not well in Irish society. The border, the midlands and the west suffer huge imbalances in the distribution of wealth and resources. These areas suffer high unemployment – 14 per cent here in Donegal, lack of infrastructural development, non existent public transport service. Rural communities are at a particular disadvantage due to geographical, social and economic isolation. These imbalances are caused by a lack of political drive. This is a challenge to us all as trade unionists – a challenge I am sure we will face with solidarity and commitment from the members and their communities. I was delighted to see the booklet on the Congress Centres Network in the delegates’ pack here today. These centres are the local public face of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. They bond local small communities who feel isolated, disadvantaged and neglected to a strong national fellowship of workers. We should not underestimate this bond as the users of our centres are our grassroots of future trade unionists. Each centre is unique and provides a range of services which are been expanded yearly. A prime example of this is the centre in Letterkenny where we now provide specialist one to one information on entitlements to British pensions. To date this service alone has attracted 1500 visitors to our centre seeking information on entitlement to a possible British retirement pension. We have secured repayments on pension entitlement for many people to the tune of 250,000 sterling. I would encourage Congress to further support and utilise the centres and their community linkages. I would also like to thank Congress and particular to thank Kathleen McCann for all her support and guidance. Finally, Mr President and delegates I wish you a successful and enjoyable conference and I hope that you all take the time out to savour the delights of Donegal and the surroundings areas - thank you very mush ladies and gentlemen. Peter McLoone, IMPACT & President of Congress Delegates I now ask Hugh McConville from the Sister Trades Council in the North West Sligo Trades Council to address conference. Hugh your very welcome. Hugh Mc Conville, Sligo Trades Council Chairperson Thank you Mr President and I would like to join with PJ in welcoming delegates to the North West and I would also like to thank PJ for the support that he gave us at the Irish Ferries march. We had a very successful Irish Ferries march in Sligo where nearly 3,000 people took to the streets and with the support of our colleagues and other Trades Councils, like PJ, like people in Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim that this was such a success. I would also like to reiterate what PJ was saying about the importance of local Trade’s Councils the local trade’s centres. These are difficult times, there are changing times and the roles of the local Trade’s Councils are changing. For example, in Sligo a couple of years ago we ran three open centres we now only have one. We have struggled for a number of years under a huge debt because of the disperse population we have in this area running these centres are a huge strain on our resources. But, we grow we develop, for example, now in Sligo we have a number of exciting projects on which we have been working very closely with our colleagues in the Fermanagh Trades Council and we have had very exciting cross boarder IT training projects. We also work with the Fermanagh Trades Council and we have got resources to employ a Polish worker to work as an outreach worker for workers from Eastern Europe and other non national countries. Our remaining centre in Manorhamililton is very successful and again with our colleagues in Fermanagh we have developed a community media project there which allows isolated communities use the media and learn how to express themselves and meet the challenges. We also are, with the help of Congress, piloting a pay learning leave project which we will be talking about later on. But these are all the exciting challenges that we can take up. There is so much other work that we can do as Trade Councils - can do and need to do because the structure, if you like of the trade union movement can’t get to do. For example, in Sligo town there are over 2.5 people employed in distribution on a part time or full time basis and most of these are young people, most of these people are unorganised. So there’s an important role for Trades Councils. But one of the crises that we are facing, and I won’t detain you too much longer, but I just would like point this out to you. One of the crises that we are facing is they are all young men and women like me and PJ. Well PJ is probably younger than I am. And we desperately, desperately, desperately need to address the whole issue of getting young people involved. It’s very serious. I mean in Sligo we’d be even glad to get young people in their forties and fifties involved. But joking apart we would nearly have to abound the work we are doing or most of the work we are doing now to refocus our efforts on attracting and getting young people involved. Because if we don’t do that in ten years time when we welcome you back to Bundoran possibly we’ll be looking at a lot bigger, a diminished pool of Trades Councils if we don’t address that issue. So again I would like to welcome you all, I see a lot of familiar faces, welcome you all back to Bundoran. I hope you will be better behaved than last time you were here. You might have got older and wiser since than, so thank you very much. Peter McLoone, IMPACT & President of Congress Thanks very much Hugh. Destination North West have been a great assistance to the Congress and Secretariat of Congress in organising this conference and sponsoring some of the events and I’d like to call on call on Paul McLoone, my brother, as a representative from Destination North West to extend a welcome to you. You can give him a round of applause. Paul McLoone, Destination North West Hopefully, delegates you’ll excuse me as the one person will not use the term ‘Mr President’. And Peter above all people, well, I think some of his family are here, but he does know about intimate relations in Bundoran from his young days.