McCarthy
Community sector takes to streets
Communities against cuts bring Dublin to a halt - 30,000 march against McCarthy cuts
developer friends at the expense of poor communities. The Bord Snip report has become a menu-list for civil servants handed the task of identifying resources to cut. SIPTU were taken aback at the numbers that marched. At the finale, those at the back of the march which filled up the street across from the Dail missed out on Jack O’Connor’s speech as not enough speakers had been set up. There was a lot of camaraderie and a friendly atmosphere in the march, but there was anger too. It was clear said one of the speakers that people wanted a say in their communities’ futures and didn’t want to be sacrificed in order to save banks. A second Communities Against Cuts march - for people from across five southern counties– attracted up to 6,000 people to Limerick on November 5th. (The Garda estimate was 6,000, which may be somewhat high, but the march stretched – for those that know – the full length
Up to 30,000 people have joined the Communities Against Cuts marches at various dates and locations in recent months, according to SIPTU. On September 30th, between 12,000-15,000 people marched through Dublin, some marching for the third time, to protest at hefty cuts this year to community resources and the threat of further massive cuts and indeed closures in2010 and beyond. “People live in communities, not economies,” read one of the thousands of placards displayed by workers and volunteers from FRCs, CDPs, Partnerships, drugs projects, CE and JI schemes and so on. If there was a general theme running through the march, it was that people saw the Government as helping out ‘fatcats’ and UN estimates that 10% of people have a disability of some type
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of Henry Street). With traffic in Limerick brought to a standstill, SIPTU organizer, Eddie Mullins, said 6,000 jobs are likely to go across the country if the Bord Snip plan is implemented in full. “These cuts will rip the fabric of the community apart to the very core. The services provided to the elderly, to children, to youth service and to families throughout the region will be in serious jeopardy if these cuts are implemented,” he said. Liz Price from Limerick won applause with the refrain, “They say cutbacks, we say fightback.” Meanwhile, the Kerry Network of People with Disabilities CDP took to the streets of Tralee as 200 people rallied in the town’s Denny Square in support of the project. And on November 6th, thousands of people from threatened Communities took to protesting in all the main cities as part of the general ICTU day of action