This afternoon.
Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2.
A group of farmers calling themselves ‘Individual farmers from across Ireland’ has parked nine tractors around Stephen’s Green.
Traffic restrictions are in place around Stephen’s Green, Merrion Row and Kildare Street….
Farmers and IFA members stand at the picket line as supply trucks are denied access to Musgraves Distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare. pic.twitter.com/R1etodrVIV
— Marcella Connolly (@MarConnollyIFJ) December 10, 2019
Outside Musgraves’ central distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare this morning
This morning.
Members of the Irish Farmers’ Association began to hold their fourth protest over beef prices at 7.00am, outside Musgraves’ central distribution centre in Kilcock, Co Kildare.
Musgraves owns Centra and SuperValu.
Sylvester Phelan, of Agriland, reports:
Beef farmers should not accept the current beef price on offer from the factories and demand a lot more, IFA president Joe Healy said at the picket.
Once again, the protest will last 12 hours and follows similar action at the Tesco central distribution centre in Dublin yesterday and the Aldi and Lidl CDCs last week.
IFA targets Musgraves central distribution centre in latest blockade (Agriland)
Pics: IFA and Briefne O’Brien
Farmers protesting outside a Lidl distribution centre in Ballyhea, Co Cork
This afternoon.
Further to this morning’s farmers’ protest outside a Lidl distribution centre in Ballyhea, Co Cork this morning…
Claire McCormack, in Agriland, reports:
Meat processor ABP has confirmed that it will increase its base price for cattle next Monday, December 9.
AgriLand understands that a minimum increase of 5c/kg is expected.
In a statement issued this afternoon, Friday, December 6, a spokesperson for ABP confirmed the move, whilst also criticising the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) for staging a series of protests on the beef price issue over the last 48 hours.
The spokesperson said: “The company is at a complete loss to understand why Joe Healy, the outgoing IFA president, pursued a course of irresponsible, disruptive and illegal action at retail distribution centres this week.
“The Beef Taskforce met on Tuesday and Joe Healy and the IFA were fully aware that market indications pointed towards a cattle price increase in Ireland. This was reported extensively.”
ABP to increase base price for cattle next week (Agriland)
Earlier: Beefing Up
Pic: C103
7.45am: Gardaí just arrived on the scene. Three lorries blocked by @IFAmedia at Lidl distribution centre in Charleville and a number of others put off and continued driving. Workers in cars being allowed in. @farmersjournal pic.twitter.com/AsizRpWILy
— Hannah QuinnMulligan (@hqmulligan) December 6, 2019
Farmers hold protest outside Lidl distribution centre in Ballyhea, Co Cork
This morning.
Outside a Lidl distribution centre in Charleville Ballyhea, Co Cork.
Farmers and members of the Irish Farmers’ Association began a 12-hour protest over beef prices at 7am.
This is the second such protest this week, following a similar protest at an Aldi distribution centre in Naas, Co Kildare, yesterday.
Further protest over beef prices as Lidl centre in Co Cork blockaded (RTE)
Beef Plan calls IFA protest ‘regrettable’ (Hannah Quinn Mulligan, Farmers Journal)
Pics: Harold Kingston and Hannah Quinn Mulligan
Farmers sleep in their cabs of their tractors outside the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin this morning
Further to the ongoing farmers’ protest in Dublin.
One of the farmers who has organised the protest, Daniel Long, told Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One this morning that the farmers will break up the protest if the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed “corrects” the Dáil record in regards to comments he made yesterday.
Mr Creed said that death threats had been made against management at C&D Pet Foods in Edgeworthstown in Co Longford – a company at the centre of injunction proceedings against two men, Fine Gael Cllr Paraic Brady, from Drumlish, Co Longford, and Colm Leonard, from Aughanoran Dring, Co Longford, preventing them and others from trespassing at or blockading the facility.
Mr O’Rourke earlier said that the show had got word from Mr Creed’s department that he has no intention to clarify or correct what he said.
Cllr Brady told Mr O’Rourke said:
“There was a PULSE when it was reported back four weeks ago, five weeks ago, but, to date, no member of management or staff has come forward to An Garda Siochana even on request, regarding they were willing to give a statement to move this forward.”
On Morning Ireland earlier, Fran McNulty reported that according to “Garda sources”, no complaint about death threats had been made by the company.
Yesterday, Mr Creed told the Dáil:
“…this is a matter which the Garda is aware of, senior management in that company have had death threats issued against them, and their partners and families have been intimidated in that local community.
“This is not simply an issue of the Government not wanting to resolve this issue. We are grappling with what are very difficult issues.
“We have seen in other cases what happens when senior executives in companies are threatened. You, Deputy Mattie McGrath, may dismiss the significance of death threats against people. The Government does not.”
Mr Long told Mr O’Rourke that he told the minister this morning that what he said in the Dáil yesterday was not a true statement.
Asked how Mr Creed responded, the farmer said:
“He wasn’t very clear, he was evasive, I suppose would be the fairest way to put it, like. He said that was what was presented to him. He said he had a PULSE number. That’s kind of all he made of it like.”
Mr O’Rourke clarified with Mr Long: “The minister was relying on a record on the PULSE system?” to which Mr Long replied: “yeah”.
UPDATE: C& D has said that it DID report death threats to the gardai.
Listen back here
Dáil transcript: Oireachtas.ie
Earlier: ‘He Met The Farmers But Didn’t Meet The Delegation’
RTÉ’s Agriculture Correspondent Fran McNulty tweetz:
Protesting farmers block the exit to Leinster House in Merrion Square, several Oireachtas members and staff unable to leave.
Ongoing road closures in Dublin says An Garda Síochána. Kevin Street, Cuffe Street, Kildare Street, Merrion Square South, Dawson Street & Merrion Row will remain closed tomorrow as farmer protests continue.
Farmers’ protest causes major disruption in Dublin (RTÉ)
Earlier: What’s On The Grill?
At a Ballyhea Says No protest in North Cork
Diarmuid Flynn writes:
Last protest march of 2019, continuing our campaign against the imposition of private bank debt on the public purse.
On the 19th Nov our National Treasury Management Agency announced that ‘NTMA cancels €500 million of the Irish Floating Rate Treasury Bond 2051’.
That’s a Promissory Note bond, the 4th such announcement this year. In plain English, it means that in exchange for four of the Prom Note bonds created when IBRC was liquidated, our NTMA has given 4 x €500 million to our Central Bank this year, that’s €2 billion, billions it had already borrowed on the open markets and for which we are now liable.
What the announcement DOESN’T say, however, is what the Central Bank did with those billions. To ‘cancel’ that €500 million, the Central Bank actually destroys the entire amount.
It’s all done via computer of course; there isn’t a van-load of hard currency delivered from the NTMA office to the Central Bank vault, there to be physically burned – a push of a button here, and the €500 million appears on the Central Bank books, a push of a button there and PUFF, it disappears, gone.
Four times this year this has happened, €2 billion borrowed and burned, and not a word of protest in the Irish media, not even a word by way of inquiry, even as pages are filled (justifiably so) on the waste of billions on the National Childrens’ Hospital, on the National Broadband Plan.
But we in Ballyhea Says Know continue to campaign, we continue to march. I will sit and debate this with anyone, anywhere, on any platform. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to join us this Sunday.
Scenes from an overcrowded psychiatric unit of University Hospital Waterford last week; outside the hospital this afternoon
This afternoon.
Outside University Hospital Waterford.
Psychiatric nurses and members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association protest over ongoing overcrowding at the hospital’s Acute Psychiatry Unit.
It follows The Irish Examiner publishing pictures of some patients sleeping on the floor of the unit last week.
The PNA has tweeted: “PNA is demanding that the HSE urgently address the deficit in mental health services in Waterford.
“The situation in UWH cannot be allowed to continue or repeated and the under resourcing and under staffing of the Waterford services must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
Waterford’s psychiatric nurses to strike in overcrowding protest (The Irish Examiner)
Tomorrow.
From 12.30pm to 1.30pm.
Members of the LGBT+ community and their supporters will gather outside Leinster House to call for hate crime legislation.
Oisin Kenny, in Gay Community News, reports:
“The community will come together in Kildare Street to kiss as a declaration that action must be taken against homophobic violence.”
‘Shift the Hate Away’ to be held in protest of Irish Government’s response to hate crime law (GCN)
Previously: ‘A Premeditated, Homophobic Attack’
Thanks Daniel
