Community

Irish Water - mass action is winning lets keep up the fight

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Even at this late stage in the game, water charge campaigners still come across the odd person on the street who will parrot the government propaganda line "We have to pay for water". Of course, this line is nonsense as we already pay for our water through general taxation and paying extra billions to an utter failure like Irish Water, which they'll just waste on consultants fees, is lunacy.

Stop the Great Dublin Land Giveaway protest

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On May 9th there was a protest against the giveaway of public land to private interests, outside Dublin City Hall.  As part of the "Housing Land Initiative" Dublin City Council is threating to hand land across Dublin - in O'Devaney Garden, St Michael's Estate and Oscar Traynor Road - over to private developers.

Activists are calling on Dublin City Councillors to:
1. Halt the Housing Land Initiative
2. In St Michael's estate and O'Devaney Gardens, ensure regeneration committee are re-established and consulted prior to all decisions,
3. In O'Devaney Gardens, build homes on-site for remaining residents before making remaining residents leave their current homes
4. Use all three sites to build cross-subsidised public housing that's accessible to all income groups evenly, with those who earn more paying higher rent.

Community Resistance & Grassroots Activism - video from˙#DABF 2016

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Recent years in Ireland have seen growing community based resistance to the imposition of austerity programs: the introduction of regressive taxes such as the property tax and water charges, and the homelessness crisis as a direct consequence.

The ongoing attempt to establish Irish Water, a state backed water utility company, designed to pave the way for privatisation of our water and infrastructure, has been met with unprecedented broad based resistance from communities across the country.

Similarly the obscene growth in homelessness across the country is being met with growing grassroots resistance through groups such as the Dublin Tenants Association and Irish Housing Network.

Large pre election water charges protest march passes through Dublin

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The footage you are watching is the 20th Feb  protest against the water charges in Dublin speeded up by a factor of four so it doesn't take a long time to play.  The match took place the Saturday before the general election is to take place in the south and it's a good time to ask with the election drawing close is this really going to bring the changes we are looking for

Dublin marches against water charges on 23 Jan 2016

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January 2016 and once more thousands of people across Ireland take to the streets to protest against the introduction of the water charges. Our footage is from the Dublin demonstration but similar demonstrations happened in most of the major towns and cities.

Numbers were down considerably on previous protests, particularly in Dublin but this is because a general election is imminent, its expected the date of the election will be released any day. Parliamentary elections like the one coming up in Ireland are set up to cause division and rivalry between groups that in fact have very similar policies, its a consequence of a system of decision making that tries to force us to choose between various leaders, self-proclaimed or otherwise.

Stormont Gives The Tories The Power To Destroy Our Welfare System

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It's no secret that Stormont has gone into one of its regular crises.

A few months ago they were arguing over Welfare Reform, then Kevin McGuigan was shot dead and they were then arguing about whether or not the IRA still existed (great timing for Robinson as the NAMA scandal was just being brought to light).

Bombardier and Crisis Capitalism

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Bombardier reported a profit of $125 million last quarter yet our media is telling us that the Company is in a serious financial crisis and that significant changes will have to be made to the workforce as a result.

Stormont Votes Against Ballymurphy Massacre Inquiry

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Today the story broke that an ex-soldier has been arrested in connection with Bloody Sunday in which 13 people (and another who later died from his injuries) were murdered at a protest against internment in Derry's Bogside on 30 January 1972.

The soldiers involved in the massacre, the Parachute Regiment, were involved in another massacre less than six months prior to this. In August 1971, 11 people were murdered over a period of three days by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy in the west of the city - 10 were shot and another suffered a heart attack after a confrontation with a soldier in which it is alleged that the soldier put an empty gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

What Will Be The Next Thing That Stormont Faces Collapse Over?

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Last December, after weeks of intensive talks the executive finally agreed upon the Stormont House Agreement, an Agreement that was primarily about economic reasons but needed to use the traditional technique of divide and conquer by throwing in sectarian issues such as flags and marches.

Irish Water bills burned in Kildare

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Yesterday afternoon in Newbridge, Co. Kildare, a crowd assembled at 2pm outside the town hall in order to collectively burn their bills in a symbolic act of defiance of Irish Water and the government's plans to introduce a double charge for water provision. The assembled protesters understand that if everyone paid up and Irish Water managed to establish these charges, they would rapidly increase to the point where water charges were a lucrative revenue stream for the company and a significant drain on our limited incomes.
 
If that were to happen, the government would certainly privatise the company and virtually gift ownership of the rights to water provision to a profit seeking company. Nowhere in the Water Services Act (2013) does it say that privatisation is prohibited. In fact, Eurostat noted in a letter to the CSO in July of this year that "Privatisation Of Irish Water Is Ultimately Envisaged". Further, Irish Water was established as a subsidiary of another privatised company, Bord Gáis (privatised in mid 2014 as part of the IMF/Irish State engineered giveaway of Irish assets to international capital).
 
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