Civil servants stage walk-out

The public service union NIPSA has organised lunchtime protests between 12noon and 2pm across the province.

All members of the local branch are being asked to leave Marlborough House as a protest for the two hours. As well as a picket at the gate, it's planned some members will go to Rushmere shopping centre to distribute leaflets in an effort to gain public support.

A spokesperson for the branch said: "This protest is extremely important as we need to show the Government that public servants will not stand by and allow our jobs and services to be decimated to the extent that is planned."

NIPSA, Northern Ireland’s leading public service union, has also announced plans for a major public leafleting exercise across the whole of Northern Ireland to highlight the disastrous consequences of the cuts in public expenditure planned by the UK Government.

NIPSA’s local branches will be leafleting across all towns in Northern Ireland as part of the walkout.

NIPSA General Secretary, Brian Campfield, said: “We want to highlight to the public the disastrous consequences for the local economy, for employment and for local communities resulting from the loss of tens of thousands of public sector jobs.

"We agree with the statement by David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA that: ‘these dangerous and unnecessary austerity measures must be reversed’.

"We also want to highlight that there is an alternative to these cutbacks. The Government can reduce the deficit by making the wealthy in our society pay a greater share of taxation.

"In addition the Government should start chasing the 123billion lost to the public purse every year as a result of tax avoidance, illegal tax evasion and uncollected taxes.

"The public need to know that the Government propaganda that the only way to cut the deficit is to cut public spending is a lie.”