Workers Solidarity Movement

Firefighters and ambulance crews are abandoning SIPTU and signing up with the Psychiatric Nurses Association to form a new union.  Des Kavanagh , general secretary of the PNA, says he expects about 2,500 new members to sign up in the next month or so.

Anarchist organisation Workers Solidarity Movement (WSM) has confirmed its intention to join the protests against Tuesday’s budget at Dáil Éireann.

Speaking today, Gregor Kerr, WSM P.R.O. said that members of the organisation would be joining the 1% Network protest meeting at Wolfe Tone statue St Stephen’s Green at 5:30p.m. and marching with them to participate in the protest at the Dáil at 6p.m.

“Ordinary people are being sacrificed on the altar of international capitalism.  We absolutely must step up the protests against what’s being done to us.” – Gregor Kerr, 1% Network spokesperson

The 1% Network has called on “workers, the unemployed and all who care about any form of democracy or equality” to protest outside the Dáil on Budget night, Tuesday 7^th December.

Over 1,500 students from Cork’s various colleges took to the streets to protest the fee increases and cuts to the education system anticipated in the upcoming budget. Students gathered at the UCC grounds, and when the marchers from CIT made it to the university grounds the protest moved off and headed to the city centre by an unusual route via Dyke Parade, the north Leeside quays and Patrick St. to the plaza at Grand Parade.

Roughly 50 students occupied the grounds of the Department of Education today in the bitter cold, erecting a marquee to hold a 'Surprise Conference.' Garda looked on until after a few hours when apparently a deal was reached whereby the students would pack up early and their would be no arrests. Given the cold that police were probably keen to get back indoors for a cup of tea.  The Department was invited to participate but failed to provide a speaker.

The latest Wikileaks release of “diplomatic” communications has unearthed some new information about the US military's use of Shannon airport. Whilst the Irish government have always tried to downplay the role that Shannon airport plays in the mass murder of people of colour and the geopolitical power plays of the US and UK, it was clear in 2005, when this cable was written, that Shannon airport was a significant “stopover” for the US industrial-military complex

A campaign against social welfare cuts and the attack on the unemployed by the Government got underway in Cork earlier today with an occupation by 100 people of Anglo-Irish Bank. Arising from a march opposing the looming cuts, the Social Welfare Defence Campaign arrived at Anglo-Irish and proceeded to occupy the front reception of the Bank.

A spontaneous occupation by 100 people of Anglo-Irish Bank in Cork has just come to an end. Arising from a march opposing the looming cuts, the Social Welfare Defence Campaign arrived at Anglo-Irish and proceeded to occupy the front reception of the Bank.

A Taiwanese news channel has produced this amusing (were it not so serious) animation that tells the story of the rise of the Celtic Tiger and the bank bail now in process.  It gets some of the historical context right - the famine and mass migration - but sometimes it has an odd view of Ireland. They reckon we we will be back to driving ox-drawn carriages - someone should tell them about the donkeys.  It shows bankers holding a gun to the state's head and a beer-drinking Cowen is later depicted as a leprechaun who is knocked to the ground and kicked by angry protesters, as is a Fianna Fáiler giving out cheese (but it's Edam rather than Cheddar).

Free Education for Everyone (FEE) has begun a peaceful protest at Anglo Irish Bank on Forster street, Galway, calling for an immediate General Election. FEE places the blame for Ireland’s current economic situation directly on the Fianna Fail politicians, who refused to regulate the financial system, and on the bankers, who took advantage of the lack of regulation to gamble on the markets. Once those bets fell through the Irish people were threatened: that failing to bail out the bankers would result in national ruin.