100, 000+ Thousand March Against Austerity Ireland

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions,which organized the rallies, claimed more than 100,000 people attended, with 60,000 marching in Dublin. Demonstrators also protested in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford.

Union’s General Secretary David Begg suggested that the campaign against the debt will carry on until the European authorities honour the agreement to separate bank debt from sovereign debt.

"It would be fatal for people to believe this issue is now resolved and we can all move on," David Begg said. "At the onset of the crisis Ireland had one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios in Europe. The difference between then and now is due entirely to Ireland socializing bank debt at the behest of the ECB, to save the European banking system."

I've no confidence at all in the deal, it won't make any difference to ordinary people," said Alfie Murray who marching in Dublin with his 8-year-old grandson. "It's the next generation that'll shoulder the cost," he said.

Financial expert Marco Pietropoli explained that Irish per capita a far bigger bill than other countries. "Therefore they are suffering a great deal more.”

Pietropoli says that Ireland's situation is one of the most difficult in the EU and that Dublin's holding of the bloc's presidency isn't likely to make things any better.

“I don’t think the Irish with the presidency are necessarily going to be able to exert much pressure or much influence to actually change the situation in Europe, because the power remains with the Germans.”

Image from twitter user‏@kierfoley

Image from twitter user‏@gribers

Image from twitter user‏@Darren606

Con O'Driscoll

When we got to Cooke Street it was quarter past two having parked up in Thomas Street. Cooke Street was still packed with marchers end to end, AGSI lining up at the Christchurch end, Sinn Fein in the middle and the Communist Party of Ireland with a load of Belfast Trades who'd been decent enough to come down at the St Audoen's end. So me and. Y kids marched with the AGSI figuring if any hassle started that was likely the safest place to be. And because my family's got a load of guards past and present. In fact walking down by Dublin Castle I met my cousin who's a detective wearing his blue AGSI vest and I said to him "Yer grandad would be proud of ya" and he said "tis the first protest Ive attended without being paid to" and I said something like "Never too late to mend yer ways" and we had a laugh and a chat all down Dame Street. Very well mannered crowds the COPter overhead had nothing to report save overly conservative estimates as to numbers. If they'd kicked off at 1330 and were still leaving Cooke Street an hour later and were marching anything up to ten and twelve abreast someone do the math. Ended up in Merrion Square and the Union poobahs were making their speeches and I decided I'd heard what they had to say five years ago the last time or maybe four the last time Id been on a Mach like this. It Eas just as good tempered then too. Asides from the occasional Trot in Army Bargains surplus shouting at street corners about the property tax and the need for a national strike to show EUrope who's boss I saw no real anger. Reasonableness yes. Annoyance yes. Worry yes. No anger though. Wonder how long that'll last hopefully awhile yet. Wonder will AGSI great people for all they do to keep us safe will march again when things are less even tempered. If things are less even tempered I hope.

Kyerin

My mother was at the Dublin protest and she reckoned there were around 50,000 people there. When the first protesters arrived at Merrion Square her group had not even left Cook St. and they were not the last group either. She also felt the RTE coverage didn't give anything like an accurate picture of the amount of people there, in fact she was pretty disgusted with it.

Marty Carr

I thought protest meant riots.... when did the meaning of protests change!!!!

As for David Begg and the leaders of the Unions, you only have to check their salarys to know that they are not their for you, if you want to protest give up your union memebership and start your own amongst yourselves that has proper morals, for example the leadership cannot earn over the average industrial wage, and also is not allow to take salaries from multliple board memeberships like Begg has, sure he is complicit in the mess we are in.

Hanger on society we have!!!! its so depressing, thats why there are no new ideas!!!

Provisional Sinn fein

February 9th, 2013 - Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD

Sinn Féin respresentatives and activists were out in force to support ICTU’s anti-austerity rally today in Dublin.

Speaking after the event party spokesperson on social protection Aengus Ó Snodaigh said:

“We in Sinn Féin are proud to have supported ICTU’s ‘lift the burden’ rally today in Dublin.

“This week the government had an historic opportunity to secure a real reduction in the cost of the toxic banking debt foisted on the people by Fianna Fáil. Not only have Fine Gael and Labour wasted that opportunity, they have increased the cost of that burden for decades to come.

“The so-called deal will mean nothing to the families who are struggling to make ends meet. It will mean nothing to the mother who cannot put food on the table, to the father losing all hope of finding work, the family who have to wave goodbye to their loved ones at Dublin airport.

“The government is still pressing ahead with plans for water charges and a property tax – measures which will place even more of a burden on hard-pressed families.

“These issues and more made today’s rally all the more important.

“I hope that this will be the start of many popular demonstrations against the government’s reckless mismanagement of the economy.

“The message today was ‘lift the burden’ – I am calling on the government to listen to that message and realise that citizens cannot take anymore. We need a change of direction; we need a better fairer way.”

According to the SWP

"The energy to take resistance forward to a point where the country is shut down for a day will probably come from wider social movements – as occurred in Spain.

A national day of civil disobedience can bring together the growing movement against austerity and the increasing opposition to the waste of public money for these insane gambling debts.

This would involve walk outs from colleges, schools, workplaces as well as occupations and sit downs on roads.

Promoting and make concrete such a call should be a key task over the coming weeks. The government thinks it can contain demonstrations and marches such as we’ve seen so far so we need something different.

In the longer run, the power to terrify the political establishment lies in the workplaces and so the call for a national day of action must be part of a wider process of encouraging workers to use their industrial muscle to bring change.

In July 2013, for example, PAYE workers will face the prospect of their wage packets being raided once again by the Revenue Commissioners to collect the notorious property tax.

The more the movement builds up now to civil disobedience, the more likely it is that that grassroots of the union will remove or byepass that thin crust of union leaders whose primary loyalty is to the Labour Party when they see the effects of the property charge.

There can be a general stoppage in Ireland – but it won’t come without effort.

IrishBlog: Why British Police Can Go to Hell in Ireland

IrishBlog: Why British Police Can Go to Hell in Ireland

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WHITE IRISH NIGGERS and LISBON

WHITE IRISH NIGGERS and LISBON


The No campaign has been accused of being paranoid about the Lisbon Treaty, which Ireland last year rejected, in an expensive nationwide rederendum. It is a rambling text meant to deliberately confuse ordinary working people. Almost 500 pages filled with details on just about everything.


One of the most important provisions would create a EU president, a continental foreign policy and eliminate the requirement of unanimity for the EU to act on major issues. While the consolidation still would not be as complete as say the U.S. yet, Brussels would emerge significantly strengthened well on the way to absolute and total control over working people in countries like Ireland.

The transformation of the Common Market which started as the European Coal and Steel Community, into the European Union has gone far. Not far enough, however, for the continent’s new elite ruling class, imbued with a pan-European philosophy to control the various national policies. Thus the campaign to further consolidate control through the Lisbon Treaty, over working people, over banking, over the cannon fodder for a unified military partner for US neo-colonialism.


The EU has evolved from a tool to expand markets for profit, into an ever more distant regulatory bureaucracy over working people's lives. Like Washington DC in the US, popular resistance is also growing to transferring anymore local powers to Brussels.


Despite opposition from just about everyone, a treaty evolved, christened the “Lisbon Treaty” which only required parliamentary approval in most countries. Polls show that voters in more than half of the EU’s member states would reject the agreement. They did not receive an opportunity to vote however, except in Ireland, who had already won that right through, the many sacrifices of its revolutionary dead, creating a constitution to protect citizens interests from centuries of being conscripted cannon fodder for their eternal colonial wars of imperialism.


The skids were well greased however by corporate and banking money, to slide the treaty through the various parliaments, irrespective of popular opinion in Europe. Then, on June 12 last year Irish voters, "the white niggers of europe", had the audacity to say no.


Anger and gnashing of teeth filled the corridors of power throughout the European continent, after the Treaty's death. However all the politicians started immediately, to scheme to get around the Irish vote. Ideas included allowing Ireland to opt out, were considered. A few politicians secretly suggested ramming the treaty through Ireland’s Dail, the lower house of parliament, but it was eventually agreed that the Irish vote again.


In short, democracy is fine in the EU, as long as it yields the correct outcome. This time they are bullying it through with innuendos of blackmail, fear, threats and disinformation or barefaced lies. So the Irish government in having another vote is brushing the last nationwide vote aside with disdain. The Irish public has been watching its politicians scheming in public ever since the last NO vote. So they can see that the con is firmly on.

The new European elite and fat cat Irish politicians agree more on process than substance, most obviously their interests merge on the right of the elite to make all the important decisions on exploiting working people to the maximum, though their may be disagreement on the shareout of the spoils and power.


The outrage of Mary Frances McKenna, director of the Business Alliance for Europe is an insight into the fascist nature of the new European elite.


"What type of democracy is it that says one country can dictate to 26 countries? What type of democracy is it where one country demands that others respect its vote, but refuses to respect the vote of the other 26 countries? What type of democracy is it that one country tells 26 countries how to ratify its laws? It’s not a democracy at all. What it really is, is dictatorship masquerading as the voice of the dispossessed."


If the Lisbon Treaty proponents are so concerned about respecting the democratic will of the European people, then they should embrace the proposal for an EU-wide referendum, suggested by Declan Ganley, who is an important part of the Treaty's opposition in Ireland.


The business alliance believes democracy is preventing people from deciding. McKenna believes that the 495 million Europeans, or the people of the other 26 countries, should be able to decide through a few thousand highly paid priviliged Eurocrats, spread across national parliaments, the EU bureaucracy, large corporations, institutional allies and the corporate media.


The Irish result is so threatening, because last time the people seized back control. The gap between the European elite and mass European opinion, is so great that it “prompts a more troubling question. Why, across Europe, have the political classes become so disengaged from the citizens they represent?” said the British Independent newspaper.


Irish people do not want to get dragged into a war with nuclear-armed Russia or Afghanistan and deapite strict neutrality laws, its government has arrogantly already sneaked Irish soldiers in there, because a distant and largely unaccountable elite in Europe and the US has ordered it, which has demonstrated its utter disdain for what the Irish people vote and decide that war is necessary?


Some Americans believe a more powerful EU would provide a more effective partner for the U.S. government. Perhaps, even a consolidated Europe implementing Brussels policies might just as well oppose American interests and create the windfall of an arms race for the securocrats and their friends in the armament idustries But the theory doesn’t matter its the power and money that matters.


Maybe with the brutal history of imperialism in Ireland and the sacrifices made by its republican resistance and working class citizen's armies paranoia is quite healthy after all.









“I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country,” he wrote in a letter to his wife. The apparent racial inferiority of the Irish was made more shocking for Kingsley by their superficial similarity to the English: “If they were black, one would not feel it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours.” By the time he described the Irish in “The Water Babies,” Kingsley had regained a measure of judgment. There they are “good-natured,” but still “untrustable” and “wild.”

In recent years, Irish writers have taken up the idea of racial difference themselves, turning it into an empowering distinction. Think of the white working-class musician in Roddy Doyle’s 1987 novel, “The Commitments,” whose identification with American soul music leads him to conclude that the “Irish are the niggers of Europe.” “Say it loud,” he tells his band, “I’m black and I’m proud.”



























Art. 48 TEU: The Treaties may be amended in accordance by an ordinary revision procedure or by simplified revision procedures

Art. 1 TEU: "The Union shall replace and succeed the European Community"

Art. 47 TEU: The Union shall have legal personality.

Art 37 TEU: "The Union may conclude agreements with one or more States or international organisations in areas covered by this Chapter."

Art. 21.2.h TEU: "promote an international system" and "global governance"

26.4 TEU:" The common foreign and security policy" will use "national and Union resources."

Art. 42.3 TEU of the Lisbon Treaty: "Member States shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities."

Art. 42.3 TEU: "Member States shall make civilian and military capabilities available to the Union for the implementation of the common security and defence policy"

EU President: Art. 15 TEU: The European Council shall elect its President, by a qualified majority, for a term of two and a half years, renewable once.

Since EU membership, we estimate European vessels have taken up to €200 billion worth of fish out of our waters - Mr Ebbie Sheehan, Irish Fishermens Organisation. Ireland received €60 Billion. Conned out of €140 billion, more if processing is included.

Bureaucrat quote: Day said the treaty will give the EU the power to "speak with one voice in helping to shape THE new world order."
(Irish Times, 7 Sept 2009) - Catherine Day, Secretary-General of the European Commission.