Anti G8 Activities

Deja Vu?

The central bank is planning changes to the Code of Protection on mortgage arrears, these changes will mean it will be easier for people to be counted as non co-operating and thus make repossession easier, please send the submission below to code@centralbank.ie or make your own submission and send before April 10th to ensure your opposition to this is taken into consideration, with 95,000 people in arrears because of this banking led recession, the people who are bailing out the banks need fairness, there is nothing fair in all powers of discretion, supervision and appeals being with the banks who will not consider the good of the person or common good of the country.

Related Links: Yet Another Government Betrayal | Ireland’s Home Mortgage Crisis: No Debt Relief. | Property Tax and Insolvency - A Human Story | Cease Evictions Ireland | Failure to do deal on legacy bank debt will cost every citizen €13,553 each | Bluebell Community Prevent Eviction | Mortgage Debt Solution | Gunman Willie O Dea keeps quiet about bank robberies

Foreign media coverage of the reaction here

The anti-abortion movement was not cowed by the outcry over Savita's tragic death nor by the huge popular response marching in November. The Government plans legislation only to allow abortion when the woman's life is danger and the criteria for establishing that are not yet known. All opinion polls on the subject show a huge majority in favour of liberalisation of the laws -- a majority which is also rising over the years. The abortion rights movement has been publicly quiet for some time now while the opposition is loud and in public view. Can the movement for abortion rights summon the necessary militancy to achieve its objectives?

The long arm of the bond-holders

Press statement - Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes (CAHWT) 11 Feb 2013
Eyewitness reports of Garda violence at South Dublin County Council

19 year old protester hospitalised: plainclothes Garda ‘smashed my head on wall’

Campaigners against the property tax – who staged one of a number of peaceful protests at Councils today – have questioned why Gardai at South Dublin County Council used brutal and unnecessary force against them, including some plain clothes Gardai. Cannisters of pepper spray were also waved at locals who were manhandled and handcuffed. One is currently being kept in Tallaght Hospital for observation of his injuries.

Aaron Nolan (aged 19, now in hospital):
“I was standing in front of Shane Donnelly when one of the uniformed police pulled me to the ground. I stood up and tried to get in front of Shane again. A stocky man, with a light blue hoody, who I thought was one of the protesters, grabbed me and pushed me against the wall. He then grabbed my head with his two hands and smashed my head against the wall. I fell on the ground and when I was on the ground, he choked me with his two hands. I was dazed and unable to stand as he handcuffed me.”

Arrests in South Dublin County Council of peaceful protesters

Irish Referendum Practice from McKenna (1995) to McCrystal (2012).

This is part two of a two part series. To read the first article in the series you can find it here

By Anthony Coughlan

“We will fix that Stalinist body" ... Comment by the late Brian Lenihan TD on the then Referendum Commission, Autumn 2001, in the lead-up to the second Nice Treaty referendum.



And How They Fixed It:
In December 2001 the Fianna Fail Government then in office put a Bill through the Oireachtas (Legislature) amending the 1998 Referendum Act so as to remove from the statutory Referendum Commission its function of setting out in a fair and neutral manner the relevant arguments for and against any proposed constitutional amendment. This was done on the last day before the Oireachtas rose for the Christmas holidays that year, when all stages of the relevant Bill were pushed through the Dail and Seanad in one day, with two days notice to the Opposition. Because of these circumstances this move went virtually unnoticed by the Irish media at the time.