SDLP Youth Universities and Schools Officer Malachy Quinn has today spoken out about the money spent by the University of Ulster on international flights.

The University of Ulster’s policy of flying its staff on international flights in business class has been described as “needless and unjustifiable spending” by Mr. Quinn.

He said: “At a time when students are finding themselves lumbered with debts of over £9,000 thanks to top-up fees, University of Ulster fat cats are busy sending people to places such as Saudi Arabia in business class luxury.

“Many young people simply cannot afford to go to university and others are facing financial ruin just to get a degree, yet the University of Ulster indulges itself in needless and unjustifiable spending.

“There is no reason why they cannot fly their staff in economy class and save massive amounts of money. This in turn could be spent on student support and improved services.

“To top it all, the University of Ulster continues to ban political organisations from its campuses. Perhaps they are afraid we’ll expose scandalous incidents such as this,” he concluded.

SDLP Youth is continuing its long-running campaign to get top-up fees scrapped, and will be protesting at the University of Ulster at the start of the next term to force it to lift its anti-democratic ban on political party organisation in its campuses.

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Details of University Of Ulster foreign flight spending:

http://plangov.ulster.ac.uk/governance/uni_notice.html

SDLP Youth have sent greetings to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the occasion of her 62nd Birthday, on 19th June. She has so far spent 11 years and 238 days in prison. Although Daw Aung Suu Kyi was meant to be released on 26 May 2007, the brutal Burmese dictactorship have extended her detention for yet another year.

The Burmese Military regime is a blight on world democracy. Unless aligned to government officials, most of the country’s 50 million inhabitants live without human rights and mainly in poverty, under a strict and often brutal regime which routinely employs forced labour, including children, and has been known to use rape as a weapon of war. There is no independent judiciary, and political opposition is violently suppressed.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic opposition party won a landslide election victory in 1990 but the military junta refused to hand over power. In 1991 Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to peaceful change.

The situation has only got worse in the last year. The dicatorship forced all five Red Cross offices in Burma to close last October. After an international outcry, they were allowed to re-open in December, however the Red Cross were forced to leave the country last month after claims the dictatorship had brought any humanitarian work to a “near stand-still”.

For more information visit http://www.burmaactionireland.org/

“I would like the west to see us not as a country rather far away whose sufferings do not matter, but as fellow human beings in need of human rights and who could do so much for the world, if we were allowed. Use your liberty to promote ours”
- Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Recommended reading

An interesting interview published in today’s Belfast Telegraph on the SDLP’s Minister for Social Development Margaret Ritchie.

Click here to read

Speaking on World Day Against Child Labour, the SDLP have called on the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Irish and British Governments to step up efforts to eradicate child labour, in the shadow of the fact that some 200 million children have to go to work instead of school.

“Seven years ago, leaders from around the world made a promise that every child of primary school age would be enrolled in formal education by the year 2015. Half way to that date and sadly the number of children working full time has barely decreased at all” said Gavin Boyd, SDLP Youth Campaigns Officer.

“According to the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour, one in every six children across the world is a child labourer. Not only does child labour ruin childhoods, it locks the world’s poorest people into a cycle of poverty that education could break.

“We’re urging the young people of Northern Ireland to think about the products they’re buying, to ask questions of retailers and manufacturers, and avoid products made by child or bonded labour” Gavin added.

SDLP Youth Chairman Gary McKeown has slammed Chief Constable Hugh Orde’s decision to buy taser weapons.

Mr. McKeown said: “In the past few years, the north of Ireland has slowly but surely become normalised- we’ve seen ceasefires, decommissioning and demilitarisation. Yet Hugh Orde wants to drag us back to the past by arming his officers with electro-shock taser weapons. Recent Amnesty International research shows that tasers can kill.

“In the past it was young people who constituted a disproportionately large percentage of people who died here thanks to so-called ‘non-lethal’ plastic bullets. I fear that the same will be the case when tasers are let loose on our streets.

“The use of tasers carries serious health risks, particularly to vulnerable groups like children and those with heart conditions, not to mention the potential for misuse which deployment of tasers makes possible. There’s no way that a police officer can know what effect the use of a taser will have on a person before they attack them with it.”

Mr McKeown added: “Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan has said that she sees no need for tasers. Mrs O’Loan has a reputation for calling it how it is- Hugh Orde should sit up and listen.”

He concluded: “Amnesty International has fought vigorously against the use of tasers by police forces. The last thing we need in Northern Ireland is for policing to revert to the dangerous and deadly methods of ‘law enforcement’ of the Troubles.”

SDLP Youth Vice Chair Peter Armstrong has welcomed news that local tea producer Punjana has launched a Fair Trade tea product. Punjana is the first tea company in Ireland to launch a fair-trade brand.

Peter said: “It is excellent news to see a Belfast company entering the fair-trade market. Part of the profits generated helps to sustain communities in the developing world and allows the developing world to manage their own sustainable growth.
“Punjana source high quality tea from Kenya and the Hassan province in India, where fair-trade projects are making real differences to peoples lives.
“SDLP Youth are encouraging people to buy fair-trade products, to support the Fairtrade At Work campaign, and the SDLP have been campaigning for more towns and villages here in Ireland to achieve Fairtrade status.”

Punjana Fairtrade Tea is available in Sainsburys, Iceland and many other local stores.

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Notes to Editor:
www.fairtrade.org.uk
www.fairtradeatwork.org.uk

SDLP Youth Chairman Gary McKeown has commended Belfast City Council on its ‘Scores on the Doors’ initiative, which provides a guide to the cleanliness of food outlets in the city.

Mr McKeown said: “This scheme is an excellent idea. It’s not only the taste of food that counts, but the environment in which it is prepared. The ‘Scores on the Doors’ programme gives consumers an idea of the standards of cleanliness in various outlets across the city. This will enable them to make an educated choice about where they want to eat.

“Food poisoning is a serious condition, which can ultimately be fatal, and is often caused by poor hygiene standards in food handling and preparation. Hopefully this ‘name and shame’ project by Belfast City Council will prompt food retailers to up their game and make sure that they are not endangering people’s health.

I also hope that the scheme is extended across the north as soon as possible.”

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Scores on the Doors

SDLP Youth Chairman Gary McKeown has expressed concern at the findings of a new report which show that house prices in Northern Ireland are continuing to spiral.

Mr McKeown said: “It is extremely worrying that there seems to be no sign of the price growth in the housing market slowing. House prices are now higher here than in Scotland, Wales and many parts of England, even though wages in the north of Ireland are a lot lower than in Britain.

“Prices have gone up 46% in the past year and up 11% during the first quarter of 2007.

“There isn’t a chance in hell of a first-time buyer being able to get onto the property ladder now without putting themselves in massive and dangerous debt. The only young people able to buy houses now are those from wealthy backgrounds. The vast majority of hard-working young people find themselves unable to pay the exorbitant prices now being asked for property.

“The effect of these massive house prices is that most young people now find themselves effectively blacklisted from being able to buy themselves a home.”

Mr McKeown added: “Not only are young people forced into rented accommodation, which perpetuates the ability of property magnates to milk the system for massive profits, but the inability to buy their own homes is going to force a lot of people to move away from the north of Ireland to areas where the cost of living is lower.

“This will present massive problems for the economy here as skilled and educated people will leave in their droves if they find that it isn’t worth their while living here.”

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Source of figures- University of Ulster Quarterly House Price Index