Blockades and lobbies of Dublin city bin truck depots

Report on this mornings blockades

Blockades and lobbies of Dublin city bin truck depots

There were blockades on two of the four Dublin city depots this morning and a lobby of the Rathmines depot. This is to mark the High Court case this morning when 24 protesters from the city are being dragged into the courts for breaking the councils injunction against blockading trucks.

Continued problems with co-ordination in the city area meant these protests happened only a little over 30 hours after it was decided to blockade two depots. Inevitably this meant that attendance was small in compassion to earlier blockades, like that of Grangegorman last week in which 120 were involved.

I was at the Grangegorman blockade which we had agreed to start at 7.30 but which actually began shortly after 6 when one activist parked her car across the entrance of the depot. This prevented trucks getting out until the rest of us arrived.

A couple of trucks had been parked outside over night but when there was an attempt to drive these off they were also blockaded. We did allow a number of the small litter vans to leave by a side gate as these were not doing bin collections.

The other blockade was taking place at Davitt road. We hear by mobile that a large force of Gardai had arrived there and proceeded to assault one of the blockaders. Workers in the depot came to their rescue saying they 'couldn't assault protesters like that and that they'd get the (Gardai) done for assault'. According to the report the police then got back in the vans and drove off.

We stopped any trucks getting out until shortly after 8.30. At that point a couple of Gardai arrived and a council official read out the high court injunction. We then held a meeting in front of the gates and decided to end the blockade as a number of people had to head off to work anyway.

Last night unions affiliated to the Dublin Council of Trade Unions endorsed a "coordinated campaign of opposition to service charges". This Saturday afternoon they have organised a march on Mountjoy prison at 3pm.