Saturday, November 19th, 2005. 2pm at the Mansion House, Dason Street. The Open public meeting will start at 2pm on Saturday 19th November at the Mansion House where the first Dail commenced. The meeting is being chaired by Frank McBrearty, Jnr. It has been organised by the people who were at the Donegal meeting, which was a huge success and where over 500 people turned up to vent their anger and frustration at the level of corruption in this country. The Donegal meeting highlighted the need for an Independent Garda Ombudsman. Justice Ireland is going to highlight the need for an Independent Garda Ombudsman in every large town and city across the country in meetings similar to Donegal and Dublin.

Saturday, November 19th, 2005. 2pm at the Mansion House, Dason Street. The Open public meeting will start at 2pm on Saturday 19th November at the Mansion House where the first Dail commenced. The meeting is being chaired by Frank McBrearty, Jnr. It has been organised by the people who were at the Donegal meeting, which was a huge success and where over 500 people turned up to vent their anger and frustration at the level of corruption in this country. The Donegal meeting highlighted the need for an Independent Garda Ombudsman. Justice Ireland is going to highlight the need for an Independent Garda Ombudsman in every large town and city across the country in meetings similar to Donegal and Dublin.

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The campaign against the bin-tax in Dublin has seen an upsurge of community resistance to the government. The mainstream media is usually hostile to the campaign and doesn't bother reporting many actions. Below is a summary of activity in two areas, activity which is being replicated right across the city.

In Spain there was an old saying to describe the inequity of that society; "some people eat but do not work and most people work but do not eat." It appears that this is the new type of society that the present Government wish to implement in Ireland.

The last months in Dublin have seen the jailing of ordinary working class people for protesting against the bin tax. A tax whose introduction was not only opposed by most people but which tens of thousands are refusing to pay. In the spring of this year more then five people were held in jail for periods because they had protested against the US military using Shannon airport to refuel en route to the Iraq war. Opinion polls at the time showed the vast majority of people opposed this war and this refuelling.

As we go to print, the bin charges battle has started in earnest in Dublin with Fingal Council's attempt not to collect non-payer's bins. Trucks have been blockaded across Fingal forcing the council to cancel all collection services. Elsewhere campaigns are gearing up to blockade trucks in solidarity with Fingal or when the other Dublin councils attempt to implement non-collection. In our next issue we hope to report in full on how the councils were defeated. In the meantime you can follow events on our web page. Below we report on South Dublin's council attempts to con households into paying.

On Sunday 13th July activists of Autonomous Community Spaces (ACS) entered 42 Parnell Square in central Dublin, a building which had been vacant for 11 years. They were violently evicted the following day. The extracts below from one of their press releases details what happened.

It is a testimony to this campaign that the government has changed the law of the land in their latest attempt to defeat it. The authorities, from the bean counters at City Hall to government level, have been twisting and squirming as they look for yet another way to make us pay this double tax. Initially they tried taking us to court. That hasn't worked and logistically it proved to be a nightmare for them. In Cork they tried not collecting rubbish from non-payers, and even jailed some campaigners for dumping rubbish outside City Hall.

The campaign against the bin tax is set to enter a new phase before the summer as the government brings forward new legislation to give the Councils the power to refuse to collect the bins of non-payers. The politicians are obviously rocked by the huge level of opposition to their attempts to impose this double tax - in South Dublin, for example, where the bills for the second year of the tax will arrive through people's letterboxes shortly, up to 70% of households are refusing to be bullied into paying.