‘Pickets may continue at Collen building sites’

PICKETS may continue to be placed at building sites operated by Collen Construction Ltd, campaign leader Richard Boyd Barrett warned last night.

“The pickets at Collen sites were always quite spontaneous. It wouldn’t surprise me if pickets continued, because these people are very angry,” he said.

“Certainly, the campaign is going to continue until Collen Construction and building firms like them accept the rights of trade unionists to work on their sites and they accept their obligations to pay people properly and give them the right conditions.”

After being freed by the High Court yesterday, three unemployed bricklayers, jailed for illegally picketing a Collen site, said they would sign up for State unemployment benefits on Monday.

The south Dublin men spent two weeks in Mountjoy Prison for defying a High Court order not to beset, watch or picket at a Ballybrack site where Collen Construction Ltd was building 77 local authority houses.

The so-called Ballybrack Three had claimed they were refused work because they were union members and came from the locality.

Andrew Clarke, Cromlech Fields, Ballybrack; Keith Kelly, Ashlawn Park, Ballybrack; and William McClurg, Sallynoggin, gave an undertaking not to picket any Collen sites.

Outside the court, Mr McClurg thanked those who had supported them.

“I would also like to thank the BATU [building union] officials, their families and friends and every bricklayer and carpenter, labourer and tradesperson and all the people who supported us. All the men and women whose rights have been trampled on at building sites every day, everywhere in Ireland, our message to you is ‘throw away your shackles of fear and stand up for your rights and join a trade union’,” he said.

A Collen spokesperson said it would take some days before work resumed at Ballybrack as machinery had been removed when the site was closed down for health and safety reasons.

By mid-morning yesterday, pickets were taken off a second Collen site at the UCD campus where a garda was injured during clashes earlier this week. A third Collen site, at the Hugh Lane Gallery, had also been picketed by supporters of the so-called Ballybrack Three.