Ivan Stojanovic

Winners:
Proinsias De Rossa
Joe Higgins
Gay Mitchell

Losers:
Eibhlin Byrne
Déirdre De Búrca
Mary Lou Mc Donald
Patricia McKenna
Eoin Ryan
Caroline Simons

The Good: Personal Web site joehiggins.eu
Twitter statistics: Following 244, Followers 163
Blog- With posts since January 2009!
Facebook
YouTube
Flickr
Bebo
MySpace

The Bad:
No LinkedIN Profile.

Conclusion:
The Blog might not be nice, but it’s certainly a work of a professional blogger. The sheer amount of social networks accounts is again a sign of a professional on duty here. The Social Bookmarking plugin for WordPress is a clear give away! Well done! But it could be nice in the same time, couldn’t it?

From Joes web site about himself:

Joe Higgins is a long time activist in the labour and trade union movement. Elected to Dublin County Council in 1991, he was a leading fighter against corrupt land rezoning in Dublin and for planning in the interests of communities rather than for speculators and major developers.

Joe Higgins was the Chair of the Federation of Dublin Anti Water Charges Campaign which won massive support and forced the Fine Gael/Labour Government to abolish water charges in December 1996. Minister for Social Welfare, Mary Hanafin, said last year that had abolition not happened, each household in Dublin would be currently paying €700 per year in water charges.

Joe Higgins was elected to the Dail in 1997 and for the next ten years was a leading opponent of the right wing policies of the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat Government. He frequently challenged the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, on a wide range of issues including land speculation and profiteering in the housing market, Government support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and in defence of workers’ rights.

In 2003 Joe Higgins was sent to Mountjoy Jail for a month over his opposition to Bin Tax, a new stealth tax on Dublin householders.

In 2005, with the Socialist Party, he exposed the horrific abuse of migrant workers by Gama Construction and struck a major blow against the ‘race to the bottom’ when that company was forced to pay unpaid wages of around €30million to its workers. (See Documentary “The GAMA Strike” here)

Joe Higgins was a key Leader of the opposition to the Lisbon Treaty last year because it would facilitate further privatisation of crucial services like Health, push the militarisation of the EU, increase arms spending and institutionalise the right of bad employers to attack agreed wages and conditions for entire industries.

European Elections are in 10 days. Lets see how are the Candidates for Dublin Constituency dooing online?