Workers Solidarity Movement

Strike4Repeal launched in January 2017, it exists currently as an ad hoc group of pro-choice activists, academics, trade unionists, artists and students. We directed a single demand towards the government: a national strike would take place on the 8th March unless a referendum on the 8th Amendment of the Constitution was called.

In December, we in Strike4Repeal came together once more to announce that a second strike action will take place if it becomes clear during Dáil debate that full abortion access will not be legislated for or if there is no straight repeal question on the ballot in the upcoming referendum. [ Video ] [Audio]

Irish pro-choice campaigners are celebrating - this is why... Abortion is highly restricted Ireland, thanks to an amendment inserted into our constitution in 1983. The government has said there will be a referendum on abortion next summer.

There are an estimated 20 to 26,000 undocumented people living in Ireland, as many of 5000 of them being children and young people. People in Ireland are generally horrified by the Trump's administrations war on the undocumented in the US but perhaps not so aware that exactly the same situation has been created by government policy here.

Young, Paperless and Powerful, a creative youth project for undocumented young people in Ireland held a solidarity rally last night with undocumented young people in the USA. The rally took place at the famine memorial on the banks of the Liffey in Dublin. YPP said in advance of the rally that in the US "young people are in the fight of their lives to defend DACA". [ Video ]

The Direct Provision institutions were introduced as a supposedly temporary measure in 2000.  17 years later they are still with us and some have spent over a decade trapped in the institutional isolation and poverty they create.  Adult residents receive €21.60 a week and some like Mosney are in isolated locations with no transport connections.  Visitors are controlled and there are little or no cooking facilities which means the children who have grown up there have seldom tasted their parents cooking and have been unable to have friends sleep over.

Interesting bit of Dublin squatting history just went online, a video of the the 2003 attempt to squat the Disco Disco building at 41 Parnell square (West). The building had been vacant for well over a decade at that stage (and may still be?) but shortly after the squatters started securing the building a gang of heavies arrived down (10.55 in the video) and attacked them. The cops arrived and pushed their way into the building after the door had been partly opened to allow someone injured in the attack to seek medical attention.

On 14th October 2017, Rally for Choice will march through the streets of Belfast. - Last year saw us counter protest the Rally for Life in the North of Ireland, for the first time we marched against their lies instead of our usual static demo. Our counter protest was a huge success, despite being organised at short notice and with only a handful of activists. The protest burst across our streets and convened at Buoy Park afterwards for speakers. We outnumbered the Rally for Life 2016 significantly.

This year, with heightened urgency, even more organisers have come together to have a stand-alone march. We do not need Rally for Life to galvanise us. We are here, in huge numbers, and we are angry.

• Angry that we are ignored.
• Angry that we face discrimination.
• Angry that our sisters and other pregnant people are forced to travel for access to a basic human right.
• Angry that we are being persecuted by the law and the media.

The text below was read out from Alfred, CUP activist and member of the cooperative social centre LA BAULA. 

Unions, organizations and groups that sign this call want to let all the working and popular classes know our stance on the different events that have taken place during the last days on the streets in our cities and towns.

For some years we have witnessed how the rise in tension in a – already historical – conflict has been taken advantage of to cut back the fundamental rights of the people. We come from a strong political and syndical tradition that has historically stood up for the rights and the freedom of the oppressed class and has also taken the streets whenever it has been necessary in order to grab from those in power everything we need to become protagonists in our present and future.

With the referendum not even definitively announced the anti-women bigots are already up to dirty tricks. This image of fake posters removed from Dublin's Pearse st this morning was tweeted by Sharon ✨ @sharmander_says a couple of hours ago. If you spot similar posters we suggest you remove them and message us a photo and the location and time they were spotted.  We would also be very interested in any information on who put these up.

This just underlines the importance of a massive turnout on Saturday's March for Choice, Parnell sq, 14.00.