Workers Solidarity Movement

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.