Big chance to stop the torture of animals in laboratories

4 million animals in laboratories but still no cures for cancer, parkinsons or anything else

4 million animals in scientific experiments each year, 75% of them medical. 50 catastrophic failures of animal tested-drugs leading to human deaths are given as evidence that animal testing isn't a parallel to the human body's system. Please join the push to ask politicians to actually hear the scientific evidence and stop this disproved, archaic, barbaric, torturous, heartbreaking human-perpetuation of a living nightmare for so many little lives, that want to live.

Illnesses and Products are Our Choices, Animals Have No Choice

 They're not the ones who want to ponce about with shampoo or scrub everything with bleach or lie in the sun until they are burnt, hairless and coated only in sun tan lotion. We get our illnesses as a result of our choices. Animals are literally strapped down daily and inflicted with them manually. Reflect on it for a sec, is there anything more sick? Please scientists and directors too, ask yourselves is testing on animals really right. Is it really working. John Carmody​ of ARAN reminded me that behind all these roles there is a person with a beating heart and therefore the potential to care about what they are doing and be educated as to what harmless alternatives are totally possible.

Ask Government to Hear the Medical Evidence 

Lets push for government to hear the evidence in Ireland too. I know I'm always quoting this statistic but its grim and still might not be known to all. The use of animals in experiments has gone up 800% in the last 5 years and 80% of that is commercial…meaning that it is just to validate products, not even pretending to advance medical science. That can only be because Ireland is not only seen as a tax haven it is also understood as a place where complete abuse and exploitation of people and animals is completely tolerated, accepted and even welcomed. I still have a few post codes up my sleeve so I can take part in the english movements - using  IP7 4EJ and changing the last 3 digits/letters should work - but perhaps Avaaz​ might set up a wider petition with this information and expand the impact? Thanks a million!

 Scientific decision to refuse Primate Laboratory at Cambridge University

50 failures of medicines tested on animals that lead to human death

Now they are giving Kilkenny City away with a promise to maintain it for the incoming owners, at our expense!

Save Kilkenny might save all our skins yet

Feel free to kick yourself if you didn't support the objections to the Kilkenny Central Access Scheme. This is where it was always leading it turns out:

For those who couldn't make the Public Save Kilkenny meeting, this is the gist of the situation. I've also sent this on as a letter to the editors of the Mail on Sunday - as they were great at scaring the ACS off Kilkenny's animals. Now its the people to be screwed by the Council …and for the foreseeable future. 

Kilkenny County Council voted to give away the main sites on the Brewery Site on Wednesday of this week. It is no longer a 'heritage site' with archeology to be explored, it is an 'industrial site' requiring a 2metre slab of concrete over it….if this is not what you want please read on and do something about it before it is officially passed!!

No social element

ISA fund  of 7.5 billion from Europe has been extremely difficult for the government to spend as it has such a strict financial criteria. The proviso is that a commercial return is required. The problem is that it rules out education, cooperatives in fact any social enterprises.

David Fitzgerald is seen below on his video saying that the people of Kilkenny bought the Brewery site with a view to the proud moment of building a university there.

Cllr David Fitzgerald's States Kilkenny County Council bought the Brewery SIte for a University

The corruption: Joe Crocket was county manager, signed off on the CAS (the contested motorway bridge to the site) and then immediately took up a post with the NTMA (with whom this week’s partnership was made) to hand over the site to!

Banned from Regulating Businesses on Site

It would hand over Kilkenny City to corporate interests in every sense. The council will not even be able to veto harmful businesses who want to be there on planning grounds, environmental grounds, business grounds or on social grounds. Planning objections would be no car parking for office blocks, moral objections would be incoming businesses doing R&D on dubious substances – pharmaceutical, military and computer advancements being the only research that can be said to make money. It was explicitly said that there will be ‘no social element to the education and research’. Environmental objections would be that they have a 2m slab of concrete over the whole acreage as they say the land is so toxified. They only want buildings that can be put on piles built there but the piles will still be breaching this barrier. Business objections would include that there are already over 100 empty units in Kilkenny and social objections would be that Kilkenny County Council intend to make a ‘teenage hangout’ under the new flyover, in contrast to the three-pronged commitment made at the 

Public Participation meeting.

1.     Environmental Excellence

2.     Integration with the City Scape

3.     Operated by Kilkenny County Council for the benefit of the people

Structure of Agreement between NTMA, KCC and Abbey Quarter Ltd

The structure of the agreement voted in on Wednsday is that Kilkenny County Council  form a limited liability partnership with NTMA and they collectively form another company Abbey Quarter Limited who will be ‘General Partner’. The site will pass into the hands of this General Partner and the council will be statutorily banned from involvement. However the liability of 4.75 million falls to us the people of Kilkenny to GET THE SITE READY FOR THE PRIVATE COMPANY TO SELL TO OTHERS.  We will not benefit from any part. In fact the liability does not stop there. Going forward? Council money will be used to maintain roads, services, designs, archeology, development and planning.

In the past, they were talking about a ‘Heritage Site’ (Its on the Medieval Mile in Kilkenny) and trying to work out how to do a reverent archeological survey before repurposing the site. Now they are calling an ‘Industrial Site’ with massive levels of toxicity that prohibit anything less than a 2metre slap on the top. It is highly suspicious as a good way to avoid doing the archeology required. They talk about PCBs and Asbestos but actually Diageo who did have the brewery left because of the dual carriageway bridge proposal. They said it would contaminate their water and product. This makes it more likely that they had a managed environmental policy and the council are just justifying glossing over the historical site.

Review The Local Government Act, reduce the power of the executive

Save Kilkenny have asked for two things

‘The Local government Act’ be looked at again and changed as the Council Executive are running riot  - in every council, forgetting that they work for the people in a public office and holding the purse strings and far too much power. They are not voted in and they do not have the moral foundation to govern any community matters. They are manipulating the elected representatives to agree to the decisions the executive have made already. Last week’s meeting about the Brewery site was conducted in secret, which is inappropriate. One councilor said that what was shared then was of concern but that now, this week, they felt fine about the whole thing and had voted it in.

The vote should have been deferred to Friday, following the Save Kilkenny meeting to explain the long and difficult details and implications of giving the site away and expose the contradictory information that they have been fed but the majority voted the partnership in anyway.

The implications for the people are that we still own the brewery site at the moment but if this vote is validated, we will no longer own it and will be paying for the services to those who do for the rest of time, even if they put our own businesses out of business. Furthermore, Kilkenny County Council have committed themselves to selling off further assets to pay for this. We will end up with less than nothing and no regulatory powers over anyone that does come.

A Judicial Review of The Voting System 

where none of the voters had full information in Advance

The absurdity and betrayal of the people is blatant. Where last year they screwed the animals of Kilkenny, this year they have in mind to ruin every last person too.  Oh yes, except for Joe Crockett and a few others perhaps who must be enjoying some part of the deal.

The second thing Save Kilkenny called for at the public meeting was a judicial review of the agreement between Kilkenny County Council and the NTMA. They breached various rules we know of already, for example that every person to vote must have a full document and information about the agreement that they’re to vote on a full 10 days before it goes to vote. That did not happen. And I am sure there are countless more infringements.

Please expose the situation or flag it up like you did about the ACS exploiting our horses and dogs. We’ve got to stop it before the 6 of the 9 sites change hands into Abbey Quarter Limited. By then it will be too late.

Very best regards,

Frances Micklem