Watch out scammers about using Eircom

A few minutes ago I received a phone call supposedly from Eircom
.A girl with a strong Spanish voice went on to tell me that I had an
outstanding balance and I needed to pay it off right away with a laser card or
a visa and she would put the payment through for me otherwise I would most
likely be cut off. Well my bill is always paid be direct debit and the last time
I checked I did not have an outstanding balance.  I told the person to take a hike and promised to alert the local police and then hung up. After this I tried to call Eircom
and all I could get was someone telling me that I was been charged 33 cents a minute
for the privilege of informing Eircom about this obvious scam and they should
alert their customers. I tried another number when I realized that Eircom had nobody
available until 9.30 in the morning .Why did I even bother???

Watch out scammers about using Eircom!

Hit the Streets! European Day of Action

The people from the Enough! Campaign
have sent us this notice of the up-coming demonstration against the cuts
and austerity measures the IMF and ECB are forcing on to the Irish Public. If
you can manage it please do come out and support this effort. As always we
encourage you to bring your Children after all this is on their behalf.

Saturday, October 15 · 1:00pm – 5:00pm  from Parnell Square Dublin

The IMF-EU-ECB (Troika) are back in Ireland on October 15th.Their austerity polices are causing immense suffering and are making the economic crises worse.Meanwhile bondholders and super wealthy are getting off scot-free. This time they are demanding we sell up to 5 Billion worth of state assets. We are selling the family silver to pay for zombie banks.

 They want to cut public sector pay again and they want to further dismantle… protections for low paid workers. They plan to slash social welfare,education,special needs assistants and close hospitals A&Es. They also plan to close social housing,introduce a hosehold tax and water tax.

ESB, Board Gais, Coillte, Aer Lingus are all all on the auction block. State enterprises like the ESB are what transformed Ireland from a third world country to a modern economy. Putting these vital public assets in private hands is disastrous.

The Eircom privatization set Ireland back years on broadband. Rail privatization in Britan led to more rail disastrous. due to cutbacks in signalling.The same will happen here with electricity ,power and water. Private companies are only interested in making profits not in running a good public service. Selling the ESB off will just transfer the social wealth into private hands.

 In fact the ESB shows what proper state investment can achieve. The ESB transformed Ireland through it’s electrification scheme. It delivered high quality jobs and cheap electricity. In the fact of mass unemployment and immigration we should be investing in state companies to create jobs.

 This has been the IMF’s Policies for decades. They load a country with more debt than what they already have,and then demand the sell off  of state assets in order to pay them back, knowing full well that the country has to much debt and when that country defaults they demand more privatization, this can be their water,hospitals,prison and even school systems. Africa has has been devastated by these policies ,life expectancy of the population has declined and in the end the countries have ended up owing just as much as when they started.

Ireland’s debt is odious. Illegitimate debt. It is the debt of the bankers and private speculators. Let them pay their own debt! FG and Labour have completely reneged on their election promises to burn the bondholders.

 We the tax payers,have to cover the bank’s debts but there is no similar bail out for homeowners in mortgage arrears or workers who have lost their jobs or workers who have lost their jobs. If we do not stop them this country will be thrown back to the 1920s.

 But they can be stopped. Mass protest can force the government and the IMF to back down. Three years ago the pensioners forced the government to back down.If we all stand together we can push them back.

link to facebook : https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=160108907409461

Temporary brake down( Nothing to do with wordpress)

I have had a temporary breakdown for the last four days as I was unable to access the
blog or any  of the wordpress based sites.This I assumed was a wordpress problem
.This morning I called up some of my friends on the Net in and around Dublin and other parts of the country .After getting reports that there was no problem in gaining access to the blog .I narrowed the problems down to a local Eircom exchange server and after
tracing the problem all the way back to my own router .My Son had decided to
fix it in order he could connect to X-box- Live. He changed the pop parameters  and so upset  the damn thing causing this problem .Thankfully the problem has now been sorted.

Back online but now a new problem

 

Well we finally got back our broadband after 7 days, Eircom says that the house wasn’t wired for broadband in the first place so they put in a new box on the wall and as a result we have now broadband at twice the speed  so they say !

Today a new problem, a water pipe burst and a big bill to boot. Rang the Insurance Company only to find we have to pay the first 1000 Euro on top of this I have an appointment with Fergus my dentist I have managed to stay away for the past two years but now my time has come again. I am not looking forward to this visit. It’s a miserable wet day and I didn’t win the big lottery jackpot either! So has anybody any good news for a change?

Internet down again !

I have had no broadband access for the last two days and Eircom tell me that the line is damaged somehow! So I have to go down to the local extra Vision to get on to the net .Eircom says they  can only get to me on Tuesday  so I am off line until then.Eircom are also expecting me to pay them 150 euro for the privilege of getting my broadband fixed so I can continue to pay them for a second rate service !

I am really pissed as this is only a few weeks since the last time I was cut of the net and that lasted 7 days  the Eircom service is absolute crap but we here in Ireland have to make do with second rate services for ski high prices no wonder we are in the mess we are in

Broadband in Ireland

Broadband customers here are paying more than twice the EU average for the service and paying for the most expensive broadband packages in Europe.

A new survey has highlighted that the average monthly cost for broadband in this country for a speed of 2Mb-8Mb is over €70 compared to an EU average of €34.10.

Irish consumers also pay the highest phone line rental charges in the world even before they sign up for a broadband connection.

The new figures for the last three months of 2010 have been revealed in a European Broadband Tariffs Database.

It points out that most broadband packages here cost an average of €33.80 a month but the cost of faster connection rates are typically more than double that cost.

Ireland Offline, the IT consumer advocacy group, stresses that the high broadband costs come on top of very high line rental costs.

They are concerned that Ireland will have the highest minimum call charges in Europe with Eircom‘s latest decision to increase charges to 9.5c per call for out-of-bundle calls from next month.

Consequences

The advocacy group says the overall consequences of these tariffs will mean that by October 2011, Ireland will have the most expensive line rental in the world, the most expensive broadband in Europe and the highest minimum call charges in Europe, both day and night.

The group has criticised government policy and regulation for the high cost of accessing broadband here,

“It clearly shows we need dramatic and new thinking if we are ever to be near top of the class in broadband pricing and supply” said group spokesman Eamonn Wallace.

Mr Wallace criticised the industry regulator, ComReg, for allowing such high charges to prevail and accused it of hiding the high cost of minimum call charges in the way ComReg itself calculates such prices.

He explained that ComReg uses three-minute rolling averages to calculate costs but “were they to show one-minute calls we would clearly have the highest call charges in Europe, as well,” he said.

Mr Wallace said the survey’s results demonstrated “the complete and utter failure of successive ministers and of ComReg to promote effective and consumer-centred competition in the Irish marketplace”.

csheehy@herald.ie

– Clodagh Sheehy

 

Comment:

All this talk of Broadband is just waffle. the broadband   services in Wicklow are  a joke and talk about a smart economy in rubbish when we have 15,000 people languishing on the Dole and no training taking place or jobs strategy  in place. There is no data base on exactly what skills are within the current unemployed of the county, there is no link up thinking of what exactly the current industry demand is for the work force of the county. Draining the financial resources of the state without putting in place the retraining and up skilling required by current industry is not exactly boding well for the future of Wicklow.

In order to come out of the current depression we must get people back to work and only an immediate re-training and up skilling of the current unemployed can kick start growth in the County

Forget the waffle coming from the political codgers that have been around for so long and put real alternatives in place that give hope  and a vision of a better future for all of us in Wicklow.

“We must learn to demand better services god knows we are paying through the nose for them”  

Thomas Clarke   

Exposing the golden circle

 

A network of 39 individuals held powerful positions in 33 of 40 top public organisations and

Private Irish businesses in three of the critical Celtic Tiger years (2005-2007), and held more

Than 93 directorships between them in these companies during this period; as well as an

Average of ten directorships each in other companies.

Focused on the years 2005-2007, the research shows that each of the 39 members of this

‘Director Network’ held multiple directorships on at least two boards across 33 of the 40

companies concerned.

More than a quarter (eleven) of the 39 members of the Director Network were particularly

well-connected. They had ten or more links, via these multiple directorships, to other

members of this Network and/or sat on three, four or even five boards of the top 40 companies

simultaneously.

In addition to holding multiple directorships, a significant proportion of the Director Network

held very senior full-time positions, either as CEOs or executive directors or equivalent

positions.

Over half of the members of the Director Network held board positions in at least one of

Ireland’s four largest financial institutions: Anglo Irish Bank, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Irish

Life and Permanent. The three most tightly-interwoven of all 40 boards were all financial

Institutions.

Full PFD report a must read! Map of Golden Circle

 by 

Paula Clancy, Nat O’Connor & Kevin Dillon

 

 

http://www.tascnet.ie