Cork's jailed bin-tax protesters to visit Higgins in Mountjoy

Leeside campaigners show solidarity

A representative group from the Cork Householders Against Service Charges Campaign will visit Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins in Mountjoy Prison tomorrow (Saturday).

The group are are all activists in the Cork Campaign and have all been jailed on the water / bin tax issue .

A group of Cork householders who were jailed by Cork City Council in relation to campaign against bin charges will visit Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins in Mountjoy Prison tomorrow (Saturday).

The group consists of people jailed in Cork on the same issue as deputy Higgins. Five Cork people were jailed on this issue in 1991 and seven more were imprisoned in 2001.

Joe Moore, a former President of Cork Council of Trade Unions, who was one of those jailed in Cork, said the visit to Deputy Higgins was to show solidarity to the Dublin campaign, many of whose members had supported the Cork activists when they were jailed.

Thirteen Cork people were jailed on the water/ bin tax issue as follows:

1991: Paddy Mulcahy, Ted Tynan, Tim Healy, Brendan O’Neill,(all Cork City), Maura Burke (by Cobh UDC)

2001: Antoin Ó h-Annrachain, James McBarron, Mick Barry, Joe Moore, Michael Joyce, Sandra Condon, Marie Healy, Joe Power,

Mr. Moore said that Cork’s City Manager Joe Gavin was following the action of his counterparts in Fingal and Dublin City Council in announcing that bins in the city will remain uncollected after November 17th if the double tax remains unpaid. However Mr. Moore warned the Cork Manager that he could expect the same level of resistance as has occurred in Dublin. He pointed out that the Householders Against Services Charges group has solid information which shows that more than one third of people in Cork are refusing to pay the bin tax – despite a much longer running dispute in the Southern Capital.

The group is unable to visit the other jailed Dublin activist, Councillor Clare Daly of Fingal as she has restricted visiting rights at the nearby Women’s Jail.