The NI Executive’s privatisation policies have boosted Capita’s profits. In 2009, Minister for Education, Caitriona Ruane, outsourced the teachers’ pensions payroll and administration service to Capita at a cost of £2.5 million. The result has seen the loss of hundreds of jobs. The Executive should immediately terminate all public sector contracts with Capita and bring all these services back into the public sector to create jobs.
Capita: 84 more jobs lost
Just days after announcing annual profits of £357million, Capita is set to sack another 84 workers in Belfast. Capita, which has major contracts with the NI civil service and the BBC, once employed 450 workers, but after this latest round of job losses, only 75 will remain at its base in Clarendon Dock.
The proposal to close fifteen libraries in the Belfast area has been met with strong opposition. Hazel Gilliland, who has been campaigning against the closures in Ballymacarrett told the The Socialist that, "the proposals would have a devastating effect. There are no facilities left in the community. Children will grow up without local access to books and the elderly will lose an important place to relax and enjoy a good book."
The decision by the Western Health Trust to cut nursing home places “is a direct attack on the elderly and the vulnerable” according to Domhnall O’Cobhthaigh, Fermanagh Socialist Party representative.
Minister for Health Edwin Poots and his partners in the Assembly Executive have received a “warning that if the Executive proceeds to make further cuts to health services, a mighty opposition will be ready in every community affected.”