Santry Anti bin tax Campaign target Ahern

dublin | bin tax / household tax / water tax | press release Monday November 24, 2003 14:52 by Paul Kinsella - Santry Anti bin tax Campaign paulkinsela53 at yahoo dot com 53 Lorcan Grove, Santry, Dublin 9 085-1478100

At Omni Park, Santry

Santry Anti bin tax Campaign

Yesterday, Sunday, the 23rd, the newly formed Santry Anti bin tax Campaign with assistance of Anti bin tax activists from Finglas, Navan Road/Dunard Road/Cabra and Ballybough disrupted Taoiseach Ahern as he was speaking at the launch of the Saint Vincent De Paul's annual "Giving At Christmas" appeal in the Omni Park shopping centre, Santry. Sorry we didn't release any info about this beforehand, but if Ahern had have found out about our protest he would have cancelled his engagement like he has done 3 times in the last month.

As I said above an Anti bin tax Campaign has been set up in Santry recently. We decided to start organising and campaigning to get publicity and to get more of the residents in Santry to join the campaign. We spotted a notice in the Northside People saying that Taoiseach Ahern would be switching on the Christmas tree lights in Omni Park, Santry, at 1pm, yesterday, Sunday the 23rd to launch the Saint Vincent De Paul's annual "Giving At Christmas" appeal. So this was too good an opportunity to miss to publicly embarrass Ahern. 11 of us turned up at just before 1pm outside the Omniplex cinema in Santry (Small numbers yeah - but just right for the direct action we did). Instead of using the main door which was heavily guarded by the Gardai and Ahern's bodyguards we sneaked in through Burger King carrying our placards and leaflets wrapped up so no one could see them. Right on cue at 1pm the band start playing Christmas carls and our leader gets up to speak. We unfurled our placards around Ahern and in full view of the cameras and media of which there were plenty and we shouted at Ahern about the disgrace of jailing honest, hard-working PAYE taxpayers and that 7 Anti bin tax protestors locked up and the fact that one of the 7 had a heart attack in jail and he is still under guard in hospital. Needless to say the Gardai, Ahern's minders and the Omni Park security staff removed us from inside the shopping centre very quickly to outside the main entrance. I have to say the Gardai and the Omni Park security staff were very civil and polite and gentle to us. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that there were a large number of media present and they didn't want any unpleasant scenes on the front pages of the papers or on the TV. After we were forcibly ejected from the Omni centre we handed out leaflets to shoppers coming in and out of the centre while we waited for Ahern to come out to face the music, and the response was very supportive overall and many of those who were in the centre when we hassled Ahern said play to us and they wished that more such actions would take place. After about 1/2 hour Ahern came out and we were able to get quite close to him and we again made our feelings known to him quite loud and clearly. Even as he was leaving we still managed to hassle him. He had to come out a long exit road from the Omni and we managed to get onto the roadway as Ahern's merc passed by - I'd say we got to within a foot of his car. A strange time happened then, the Special Branch detectives who provide Ahern's security beeped the horn but not in an aggressive manner, more of a supportive beep. All in all a good day's work I think - We certainly made our feelings known to Ahern and he certainly looked most uncomfortable in the Omni yesterday and we managed to get some media coverage on the 6 o'clock news on RTE1 last night and in this morning's Irish Times and Irish Examiner (If there was any other coverage in the media elsewhere like on TV3 or TG4 or any of the other papers could people let us know). Let us tell Ahern loud and clear that he'll be facing many more protests and actions like yesterday over the next few months until his government releases all the Anti bin tax protestors, stops the jailing of Anti bin tax protestors, orders the local authorities to collect all bins and scraps this unjust and unfair tax.