Mick Murphy (Irish Socialist politician)
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Cllr Mick Murphy |
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|---|---|
| South Dublin County Councillor | |
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Assumed office June 2004 |
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| Constituency | Tallaght Central |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Anti-Austerity Alliance |
| Other political affiliations |
Socialist Party |
Mick Murphy is a Socialist Party political activist who sits as a Tallaght Central representative on South Dublin County Council. It was Murphy who discovered the GAMA construction scandal, which was subsequently raised in Dáil Éireann and led to nationwide strikes.
Murphy contested his first general election, for the Dublin South-West constituency, in 1997, finishing in ninth position. He was a candidate for the same constituency at the 2002, 2007 and 2011 general elections, finishing in seventh position. He spent three weeks in Mountjoy Prison in 2003 for his role in the Anti-Bin Tax Campaign.
It was Murphy who, upon travelling to Lucan to support three BATU workers in October 2004, discovered the GAMA construction scandal where Turkish workers were paid €2 an hour on publicly funded projects. After contacting the local council, GAMA and trade union officials and remaining unenlightened, Murphy wrote a leaflet in English, had it translated into Turkish "mainly to say that we had no problem with them being here, and saying what GAMA had said", then threw it over the hoarding surrounding the site where the men were living as well as working. When the truth emerged, Murphy "knew immediately we had a major scandal", he later said. Murphy brought it to the attention of his party colleague Joe Higgins, who was then a TD for Dublin West, and Higgins raised the matter in Dáil Éireann on 8 February 2005, bringing public awareness to the workers' plight.
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