Workers Solidarity Movement

The scene at the bottom of Kildare street where the anti democratic protest barrier was erected to stop people getting within earshot of the politicians in the Dail. All days thousands of people stopped here to demand access to Kildare street.

In this scene one man turns to the crowd and asks if he will really be arrested if he tries to walk up the street. He then climbs over the barrier and starts to walk only to be rushed by several Gardaí. As the crowd chants 'shame' more Gardaí come down the street and stand on the inside of the barrier, and after some time the man is allowed to climb back over the barrier.

The water meter installation company GMC Sierra  obtained court injunctions that basically banned water charge campaigners from coming within 20m of an installation.  The Edenmore 9 were initally brought to court with this injunction, the case againt 4 of them is detailed below.

Over 200 women demonstrated tonight outside of Coolock Garda station against the wave of Garda violence at water meter installation protests.

Garda assaulting community protesters and the media not reporting? Politicians spinning greater and greater lies about 'sinister fringes' and dissidents? What's happening now to Water Charge resistors happened to the people of Rossport a few years back and we can learn from their determined resistance.

Scenes of Garda violence being used against water charge resistors have come as a shock to many people. Ten years ago if this had happened most people elsewhere might only have heard rumours and assumed that something must have been done to deserve the response. Today however the prevalence of camera phones and the ease of sharing photos and video on Facebook has meant one video after another showing disproportionate violence from the Garda has ‘gone viral’.
 

After weeks of Garda provocation, and just after Garda beat protesters with batons someone finally snapped and threw a single brick back. When a politician as unpopular as Joan Burton uses dozens of riot police to force her way into and out of one of the most deprived communities in the state, what should be expected but angry protest. And when at a moment of unprecedented popular mobilisation those same Garda pull pepper spray & batons for use against water charge resistors what is a single brick bouncing off a car in response.

Running scared from the huge numbers mobilising to resist the water charge the establishment are now pulling out all the stops. Over the weekend we saw an image of a single brick being thrown at a Garda car used to try and divide the movement through saturation coverage of the brick and the demand that resistors condemn 'violence'

Then on Sunday as Enda Kenny drove out of the Mansion house three Garda grabbed Fiona who was protesting there and threw her head first into a metal bollard at the side of the road. In the video of the incident you can hear a sickening thud as she hits the bollard but you can also see the considerable force put into throwing her. But don't expect a media outcry about the violence of 3 large men smashing a women's head* off a metal pole, instead expect to hear once more about that brick that bounced off the back of a car.

There were significant disturbances in Santry & Coolock last night following a Garda assault on water charge campaigners protesting a visit by Enda Kenny and Denis O'Brien.

These images are from the video at the link  which shows why the campaigners became so outraged. As Enda Kenny drove through the crowd (flashing a dismissive thumbs up sign at the protesters) Garda were assaulting them and throwing them to the ground.

Later multiple arrests were made as Enda left the event and then Garda attacked solidarity protesters with pepper spray who had gone to Coolock Garda station.

Following increasing Garda suppression of community resistance to water meters tens of thousands of people took part in a march against the water tax in Dublin on October 11th. This was the largest demonstration since 2010 and reflects a broad rejection of the way the costs of the capitalist crisis continue to be imposed on ordinary workers. The huge size of the demonstration certainly suggest a mass boycott of the tax could make it impossible to implement, as was the case in the last attempt to introduce a water tax.

Tuesday night the government published the overdue Cooke Report into the GSOC bugging controversy. Retired High Court Judge John Cooke, no stranger to controversy himself (link: see comments) was appointed by Enda Kenny to establish whether the offices of GSOC were bugged.

Wednesday morning Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice and Equality and replacement for Alan Shatter after he was forced to resign, is lauding the report as an exoneration of the Gardaí. The 64-page report claims that “evidence does not support the proposition that actual surveillance…took place and much less that it was carried out by members of the Garda Síochána.” Yet there are a number of revelations in the report that raise serious questions as to its ability to speak to the bugging issue in a definitive manner.

Almost two years after Shell smuggled their Tunnel Boring Machine out of Dublin port in the middle of the night, and then spent 3 days meeting resistance across the country before getting stuck in the bog, they removed it from Erris Monday night.