Workers Solidarity Movement

On Tuesday the 27th of September there was a solidarity picket held outside the Children's Court in Dublin.  The picket stood outside from 10 am till 5pm today the day of the verdict of the Jobstown kids trial.  People from Tyrone, Arklow, Wicklow and Cavan travelled to show solidarity outside the Children's court and there were solidarity pickets in other counties.

Protesters crowded around on the street, in a natural symbolic reaction of solidarity against the trial of a 17 year old, who has long worked in communities volunteering. Who the state has created spurious charges against him, of “false imprisonment”. When the minister Joan Burton was in Tallaght - a community blocked her in for a short time out of her privileged life, so miniscule in comparison to the communities who suffer a life sentence of poverty as she and her cronies eased tax for vultures and slashed welfare.

September 17th sees the next major national march against the 'we can't believe they are not dead already' water charges. We respect that many anarchists will be marching with their local groups but for those who are not we thought it would be good to have an anarchist bloc and march together, everyone can then meet up at the end.

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.

Since it's such a nice day, the Labour Party have some good news for you. They'd like to give back all the money they took from those who paid their Irish Water bills. That's quite a turnaround for Fine Gael's junior partner but they say it's because they don't want people "feeling mugged".

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

Great news from the courts today (17 Feb)  where 11 out of the 13 Crumlin water charge protesters arrested last year have had their cases dismissed. Although 2 are still to face trial in May this is a victory not just because 11 are already off but because the judge seems to have smacked down the Garda attempts to interpret the Public Order Act in a way that would outlaw a lot of protest. This is a significant slap down for the political policing pushed as a strategy by the Labour Party & Fine Gael to try and demoralise the water charges movement.

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.

We awake to news that more towns in Ireland are under water due to storm flooding. And that perhaps the sea ice at the north pole might melt due to temperatures rising above zero. The first story is given a lot more prominence in Irish media than the second but strangely at the same time another story is being celebrated. The start of yet more greenhouse gases being pumped out of their safe place far below the sea off the Irish shore to be processed and then released into the atmosphere via the Corrib refinery.

The photos shows the Jobstown 23 'Drop the Charges' banner on its way down the Quays to the courts on Parkgate street. The Jobstown 27 charged in connection with the protest last November which saw Labour Party leader struck in her car because of a sit-in just in front of her. 

Revenge came initially in the form of over the top dawn raids on the houses of water charge activists and now after a long delay many are charged with crimes as serious as false imprisonment  - the maximum sentence for this is 14 years - despite the fact that several Garda were also around her car at all times. The number facing charges means this may be one of the largest political trials in Ireland for some decades.