Galway protest against government cuts (Video, SpunOut.ie Youth)
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Dé hAoine Mí na Samhna 06, 2009 18:30
by SpunOut.ie Youth Volunteer - SpunOut.ie Youth Movement
The West's Awake
Vibrant rallies were held today in Dublin, Cork, Dundalk, Galway, Limerick, Sligo, Tullamore and Waterford to protest against the treatment of workers and the vulnerable in Irish society. It is estimated that over 20,000 marched in Dublin, up to 15,000 marched in Cork and up to 5,000 or more in other cities and towns around Ireland. This is undoubtedly a powerful collective message to our government.
Galway marcher
SpunOut.ie chatted to many protestors at the Galway rally and asked ‘Why are you here?’ Some of the messages we heard back were:
* ‘We are being treated unfairly.’
* ‘Those in power and the elite are trying to keep these old ways alive so that they stay rich,
while we lose our jobs.’
* ‘I deserve better and my children deserve better.’
* ‘I’m a fully qualified nurse, just out of college and I have no chance of getting a job.
I don’t want to leave the country or my family. What am I going to do?’
* ‘We can’t put up with the way our government is treating us any longer. We must do something.’
The clear message from the organisers of the rallies, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, is:
'This is about how we can get through the crisis without forcing low and middle income families to bear all the burden. It is about how we can emerge in better shape on the other side and make sure the same mistakes are not repeated.
The priorities of Government are wrong and will not change unless you get up, stand up and demand that they do what is best for people.'
The Five Key Demands of Government from ICTU are:
1. Tackle the Jobs’ Crisis
2. Stop cuts to peoples’ incomes
3. Protect vital services
4. Safeguard peoples’ homes
5. Make the wealthy pay their fair share
Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said marching will not reduce the economic challenges facing the country. She also said people have the right to protest in a democracy, but said the Government has to take the decisions that it deems necessary to deal with the economic crisis. She said the Government faces unprecedented economic challenges and that everyone needs to work together in the national interest.
If you have any thoughts on the protest, on the thousands of people marching, or on our government, discuss it on the SpunOut.ie discussion forums here:
http://www.spunout.ie/forum/php-BB-3/viewtopic.php?f=6&...=2722
Embedded Video Description: Galway March
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Comments (3 of 3)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3There were between 20 and 25K on the march in Cork this afternoon. Thankfully the sun shone for the whole event. The mood was positive and determined. As with the teachers march last year, the crowd stretched from its starting point to its finishing point - from Connolly Hall through Parnell Place around by Merchants Quay then along the full length of Patrick Street and on down to the end of the Grand Parade.
"Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said marching will not reduce the economic challenges facing the country. She also said people have the right to protest in a democracy, but said the Government has to take the decisions that it deems necessary to deal with the economic crisis. "
Translation: March all you want you idiots, but we'll still push through the policies we and our elite friends want.
"She said the Government faces unprecedented economic challenges and that everyone needs to work together in the national interest."
Translation: We're cutting welfare and services to pay for this and we refuse to fairly tax the rich. Get used to it fools.
Why is this woman even still in office??. The PD's no longer exist. Her sole remit seems to be to dismantle our health services and run them into the ground so that large corporations can come in and cherry pick the profitable parts of it, creating a basket case system like in the US. They don't even bother to follow up on the millions some of these private health insurance companies still owe to the public health system for use of it's facilities, meanwhile old people wait on trollies for hours in A&E
Harney has no party and therefore speaks for no one in or out of government. In any other country she'd be gone long ago - but she won't go of her own accord because that takes the kind of moral courage and ability to do the right thing that she doesn't possess. Surely there is something in the Constitution that prevents her, her party dissolved, from holding a post in government? She has never run as an independent, for instance. I would argue she has no legal right to be there.