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10,000 March on Fine Gael Ard Fheis

04/04/12

Up to ten thousand people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday [March 31] to register their opposition to the new ‘household charge’. The protest, which was as loud as it was colourful, was made up of a representative cross-section of society in the Twenty-Six Counties. Man and woman, young and old, urbanite and rural dweller came together to stand in opposition to Phil Hogan’s hated poll tax.

As the mass demonstration moved off from Parnell Square the mood was a mix of defiance and celebration as it was already clear that in excess of one million eligible households had refused to pay the new €100 tax. As chants of ‘No Way! We Won’t Pay!’ echoed along O’Connell Street it was also clear that the 2012 Fine Gael Ard Fheis was about to be besieged as no Ard Fheis before.

Amongst the thousands of protesters were scores of éirígí members and supporters who had come to add their voices to the growing opposition to the home tax and the wider austerity programme.

Speaking after the protest éirígí Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan, who was one of a number of speakers to address the rally, commended all of those who had marched on the Fine Gael Ard Fheis:

“For months now it has been clear that the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes is developing into something far bigger than any campaign of recent years. At literally hundreds of meetings across the state the defiant mood of the people has been obvious. At midnight tonight more than one million people are set to break the law by refusing to register their households for the home tax. This will be the biggest act of civil disobedience in the history of this sorry state.

“Last Saturday three thousand people attended an anti-home tax rally in the National Stadium. And today we have ten thousand on the streets. Tonight about a million people will join the boycott. These are very encouraging signs of a building resistance to not only the home taxes, but also the other austerity measures that are being imposed by the Dublin government and the Troika. Hopefully the coming weeks will see further demonstrations and protests. After four years of recession and cutbacks it appears that the people have now had enough.”

Louise concluded by encouraging people to attend the next major CAHWT protest in a fortnight’s time: “On April 14th éirígí will be joining the CAHWT protest at the Labour Party National Conference in Galway. We are encouraging socialist republicans from across the country to join us there. The Labour Party need to get the same message in two weeks time that Fine Gael got today. The home tax is unfair and immoral and it has to go!”