Frilly Keane tweetz:
Ah he’are where would ya ge’ih it
Tag Archives: Irish Water protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbGO3L3QJ2M
Stop them.
They’re attacking Democracy
Word On The Street Ireland writes:
“A large number of people turned out to protest against the set up of Irish Water [in Cork] on Saturday. The protestors met near the library on the Grand Parade and then marched down the South Mall, along Merchant’s Quay, up St. Patrick’s Street and back to the Grand Parade. This video portrays views from the ordinary people in the march.”
One man told Word On The Street Ireland (at 10.07):
“My father had a stroke, god rest him, the services weren’t there then, the services aren’t there now. And when my father had a stroke, and it distresses me, and there’s no fault now to the staff in CUH [Cork University Hospital]. My father was on a trolley for 24 hours, after a stroke. He wanted to relieve himself, which is one of the symptoms of stroke apparently. And the nurse handed me a pigeon and I had to hold my father’s privates out in the middle of CUH, as people were passing by. I’ll remember that to the day I die. And the situation has not improved. We’re giving money to the bankers, the hospitals are suffering, the nurses are protesting and there’s plenty of money there. As was said earlier, they’re burning €500million, here at the Central Bank – €500million for the next infinite number of years. Could that money not be diverted to pay for the health service?”
H/T: Grant March
Further to the SUV pavement debacle…
Jimmy The Head writes:
“I went through that video footage frame by frame (off YouTube so not great quality) but managed to pull a few still images showing the number plate. I think I managed to guess the right reg after a few attempts!…”
So.
What NOW?
*fondles pitchfork*
*calls guards*
Previously: Who Was In The SUV?
Irish Water protesters surrounding an SUV after it mounted the pavement and hit a lone pedestrian, by Butt Bridge in Dublin city centre yesterday
Further to our earlier post of a video showing an SUV mounting the pavement and striking an Irish Water charge protester before speeding off with another person on the bonnet in Dublin city centre yesterday, Kevin Des Keane – who witnessed the incident and took pictures – writes:
“It happened on Butt Bridge around 3:15pm. A silver SUV (Landrover?) mounted the footpath from behind the lorry. When it got to one of the 30-odd protester that were slow marching at that junction on the road and path, the SUV, after what looked like a brief start/stop situation, didn’t stop and knocked him over. As that was happening more people realised what was going and went towards the SUV. It then continued through with one person on its bonnet a few meters who was also in its way. He managed to get off with being run over and the jeep left the scene on past the Customs House. The first man was taken away by an ambulance. I don’t think he was hurt too bad but both were definitely very lucky. It could have been really bad.”
These are Kevin’s pictures and captions:
This was taken 3 mins before the incident. Everyone young and old were in good spirits. You can see the lorry behind her. From behind the lorry the jeep mounted the footpath.
Second man on bonnet as jeep tried to come off the footpath onto the road.
First man on the ground immediately after being hit by SVU. You can see the position and the distance the SUV had to travel on the footpath to reach the first protester it hit.
First man being treated by paramedics 10 minutes after the incident. Again, more perspective of the footpath and distanced travelled by the jeep.
Out and about (Kevin Des Keane)
Previously: Law & Order SUV
This morning.
Dublin Says No writes:
Carnew Street [in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7] blockade ongoing. Irish Water workers threatening and intimidating local residents this morning. It is an intolerable situation. Please show your support. There have been a number of arrests in neighbouring areas of Phibsboro and Grangegorman. One man arrested for filming the protest, while Irish Water’s private security filmed protestors unimpeded by Gardaí.
Previously: Dumb Intelligence Gathering
Update:
In the Dáil this afternoon Paul Murphy attempts to describes an alleged incident in Stoneybatter this morning involving private security firm Guardex.
Update:
Mark Malone writes:
Today in Dublin 7, Guardex, hired by #IrishWater, threatened numerous peaceful campaigners in Stoneybatter. One local resident, Mick Mooney, was on his way to work when he was pinned against a wall by three private security guards and told ‘I’ll get you. You don’t know who you’re messing with.’ They then showed him a photo of his car and its number plate. Several women in the campaign were told by private security that they’d find out where they live.
Three people were arrested in the Dublin 7 area today for protesting against the installation of water meters.
In Phibsboro, police arrested two campaigners while Irish Water contractors allegedly assaulted campaigners across the street.
In Grangegorman, a car belonging to a peaceful campaigner had its tyres slashed.
The guards arrested another local resident for filming the protest.
Today, there has been invasive surveillance of peaceful protestors by shadowy private security firms. Today, there have been violent attacks on peaceful protestors by the hired mercenaries of billionaires. Intimidation, fear, bullying and violence seem to be the only solution Irish Water can propose to local residents’ peaceful protests. If they get away with this violence in Stoneybatter, it will spread to other communities. This is not just an attack on the Dublin 7 campaign, this is an attack on us all. Join us tomorrow from 6:30 am outside Kavanagh’s pub at the top of Manor Street, and from there we will organise demonstrations around Stoneybatter, Grangegorman and Phibsboro to make a peaceful stand against this horrific behaviour. Keep Irish Water out of Dublin 7.
Where’s Wally record attempt in Merrion Square (top) and a crowd map of yesterday’s protest
Further to CrowdGate.
Graeme Kelly writes:
There were 3,657 people at the Where’s Wally record attempt in 2011. From my view of the crowd yesterday I saw the following (see map). Each red block on the map = approx say 3,500 . . Do the maths and let the comments begin…
FIGHT!
Scenes from today’s Irish Water protest from Random Ireland Photos, including Glan Hansard and Damien Dempsey (above), Catherine Murphy TD (second last pic) and Brendan Ogle of Right2Water (third last pic).
Randomer writes:
He may have insisted earlier today that nothing will change if even 50,000 people turned up today. However, despite even Right2Water organiser Brendan Ogle suggesting recently about 30,000 would turn up, many more than that have already arrived and are attending today’s anti-water charges protest.
Estimates of the crowd now are in the region of between 70,000 and 100,000 – packed into streets around Merrion Square and Leinster House, which is sealed off by a mixture of steel barriers and gardai. Alan Kelly has insisted nothing will change on water charges even if 50,000 people turn out for the protest today. Speakers at the even so far have been Ogle himself, Independent TD Clare Daly and Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams.
Perhaps said while anticipating a much smaller crowd, Minister Kelly made it very clear earlier – while speaking sat the front of Leinster House a few 100 metres away from the water protest site on Merrion Square – the package of changes he announced in the Dail last month was not only ‘fair and balanced’ but will also not be changed. In echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s ‘this lady’s not for turning’, he told journalists: ‘We have to go down this route, There simply is no other route. I am quite content in relation to where we are at and where we will go. I am satisfied that this will be delivered. I don’t envisage anything changing in relation to the package at all. I sleep on my pillow at night wanting to make sure I do the right thing. People who are cynical might not think that is true. I am quite content and happy about the package that has been put together… People get obsessed about elections all the time.There is too many of the people behind me – of the 166 TDs – who are continuously obsessed with elections. Elections happen, elections come and go. What will be will be.’
Pat McGrath tweetz:
Around 50 people outside Ballina District Hospital [in Co. Mayo] as Taoiseach attends function here. Opposed to water charges
Protesters call for abolition of Irish Water as Kenny attends Ballina function (RTE)
Dublin Says No writes:
Residents in Tempelogue stop Irish Water from entering their estate.
Gaythoven tweetz:
Some of these people have been here since 7am.
Pics via Dublin Says No and Gaythoven
Protests in Donaghmede, Dublin 13 yesterday.
Cunning Hired Knaves writes:
“In Jobstown, Dublin, on Saturday afternoon, a woman was confined to her car for two hours. Insults were shouted. A water balloon was thrown. The car was rocked back and forth, and people banged noisily on the roof of the car. Following Garda intervention, and negotiation among the protesters, the woman was allowed to leave.”
“On the scale of things, on the scale of the massive structural violence inflicted by austerity policies in Ireland, this was nothing. Nothing. That did not stop a host of figures from Ireland’s political and media establishment, but also a good deal of polite society, from weighing in against the protesters, with terms like “scum”, “mob”, “fascists” liberally cast around.”
“In this regard, Joan Burton is a beneficiary of socialism for the rich. The concern for her wellbeing is a product of the indignation felt by the rich – and those who identify with them – when they feel that one of their own has come under attack. They look at her and ask themselves what if it was them, or what if it was a member of their family. The sympathy is second nature.”
“By contrast, the protesters who surrounded the car are an amorphous, menacing swarm. They are not people like “us”; they are not brothers or sisters or people struggling to pay bills or people enduring any kind of humiliation or hardship who have found a common cause together. The fact that they have appeared in public view, that they have stopped the normal order and flow of things where those who rule are treated with respect and those who are ruled maintain a harmless distance, becomes cause for instinctive outrage.”
“The idea that they might be stopping the car, and even hurling insults or a water balloon, because the government represents the interests of the rich whilst expecting to be treated like dignitaries, is beyond the bounds of polite conversation and contemplation. Joan is right because the State is right because the markets are right and because we are right, and that is that, and anyone who disagrees is an enemy of democracy. This, as I was saying the other day, is what demophobia looks like.”
“The focus on the Socialist Party TD for the area, Paul Murphy, and on his role in the protests, is in keeping with this fear of the mob. What is outrageous about him, from this perspective, is not that he is an elected representative and hence not behaving like the genteel legislator he ought to be, but rather that he is from a relatively comfortable background. And as such, he is a traitor to the cause of socialism for the rich.”
“People from relatively comfortable places, according to this line of thinking, have no business finding common cause with people from Jobstown, since the latter do not know their own minds: people like him should become accountants and vote Labour and remain respectable members of society. And if people in places like Jobstown do irrupt into our line of vision, it isn’t because they have decided among themselves to mobilise because they have had enough, but because they have been led astray. They are there to be led; they are not there to take part in politics, and if the Gardaí have to batter them, well, that’s regrettable, but they’re just restoring proper order, after all.”
“And the trouble for Ireland’s political and media establishment, and also a good deal of polite society, is that this “mob” is not planning on going away soon. And deep down, they know it, and they are scared. Hence it is easier and more productive to focus on a single brick than to contemplate the crumbling foundations beneath them.”
Socialism for the rich in Jobstown (Cunning Hired Knaves)
Related: Paul Murphy’s immaturity a disservice to real protests (Fionnan Sheahan, Irish Independent)