Dail Protest

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday March 20, 2003 14:57 by Justin Moran - Sinn Fein maigh_nuad at yahoo dot com

Dáil Protest Report

About 200-300, numbers varied over the morning, protestors took a stand against the war outside Leinster House from 11am this morning.

They joined protestors who had slept out in front of the gates of the parliament last night as part of a 24 hour protest for peace.

There were sizeable presences from Sinn Féin (Including fur of the five TDs), Greens (Gogarty and Cuffe), Labour (McManus and Costello) and the SWP, with a variety of smaller groups and non-affiliated people present as well. Members of Ográ Shinn Féin suspended banners off the roof of Buswells Hotel calling for an end to war and the bombing of Texas, on the grounds that it too has oil.

The protest was very loud, colourful and good-humoured with a large media presence. There were speeches from a variety of individuals and groups including, in speaking order, Liz McManus of the Labour Party, Paul Gogarty of the Green party, Martin Ferris of Sinn Féin, Joe Higgins of the SP and others. Some time later I saw Tim Hourigan speaking as well.

The movements of TDs in and out of Leinster House were booed or applauded depending on their stance on the war with a female protestor breaking through a Garda barrier to throw paint on FF Senator Terry Leyden.

The Gardai detained the young woman and I'm not sure what happened to her though a witness from inside the gates said he thought the cops let her go.

There are unconfirmed reports that Kerry South TD and Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism John O'Donoghue was briefly chased by some protestors as he left the House.

The crowd was regularly joined by protestors, including many school children, who had walked out of work, replacing some who had to go back to work or for lunch and the names of places from which workers had walked out was occasionally called out by Richard Boyd Barrett of the IAWM. The only ones I can remember off-hand are the National Museum and the James Connolly Memorial Hospital.

Despite attempts by workers in Leinster House my understanding is that the staff of Sinn Féin and some Labour staff members were the only workers to walk out, despite the fact that much of the Leinster House staff is unionised.

As I left, calls were being made on Bertie Ahern to come out and face the people with, one assumes, limited expectation of success, and the protest was winding down with calls to mobilise for the protest outside the American Embassy this evening.