EU comes to Galway

galway | eu | news report

Friday January 30, 2004 18:53

by Maratist - Hooded Idiots International

Report and photos on the protests at the EU summit in Galway - apologies for the delay

Oh No Protesters!!!!

Several hundred people gathered to protest at the EU meeting in Eyre Square, Galway, on the evening of Friday, January 16th. The EU delegates were staying in the Great Southern Hotel – at one side of the square, and would be attending a Macnas performance in the Radisson hotel around the corner. The meeting itself – of employment/labour ministers - was in yet another hotel on the outskirts of the city.

Under the banner ‘Make Work Pay’ this was concerned with narrowing social welfare entitlements and cutting back on pensions, that is, the usual drive for a “flexible” (read disciplined) labour force, via forcing people previously on welfare into jobs with worsening conditions. See for instance the recent restrictions on Rent Allowance.

One wag suggested ‘Make Workers Pay’ might be a more appropriate title.

Slowly the crowd assembled, with one witch, several Tibetan horn players, a phalanx of lantern carriers, assorted drummers and innumerable paper sellers. After a wee bit of chanting the march set off and marched the grand total of one side of Eyre Square where it as meet by a piss poor Garda barricade, preventing it from reaching the streets between the Radisson and the Great Southern.

At this juncture a small group walked around the barrier by going up a small lane till they were, – quite easily, behind police lines and right beside the road buses and cars for the EU big wigs were transiting.

So the police hastily erected another barrier, and we walked around to the entrance to the Radisson.

Hung about here for what seemed like ages – and then went down the other road which lay between the Great Southern and the Radisson, through the bus station – again this was a small but very noticeable group – again the police didn’t wake up until we were on top of them, and then they put up another barrier. Meanwhile chanting continued in Eyre Square - despite it being, as you can see from the above, fairly easy to effect an entry to the streets between the two hotels. That is, to areas where our presence could actually disrupt the EU shenanigans – even if only symbolically.

The crowd at the entrance to Radisson got bigger in dribs and drabs, while the police formation got bigger fairly dramatically. They then cleared the road which lead from the Great Southern to the Radisson, through the bus station, by pushing us, fairly aggressively past the road junction, so we only blocked one access road. Unusually Special Branch pigs were in the middle of the action.

Apart from some fairly impressive fire juggling things were seemingly dying down at this point, and I noticed a whole group of riot pigs lying in waiting around the corner – then I got word that two guys had been arrested. So after passing the details on to legal support some of us wandered down to the copshop, – a place I was to spend what seemed like two days standing outside. Two youths had been arrested for traffic obstruction – while walking through a car park. Back at the blockade there was a bit more excitement when the police forced a bus through.

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