Coolock must fight back !

Since the collapse of the so called Celtic Tiger and introduction of savage budget cutbacks across this state, the Coolock area is a classic example of a working class community under attack by the Twenty Six county government.

The unemployment rate in Coolock and Darndale is well above the national average of 14.6 and shows no signs of decreasing.

In recent years ‘slash and burn’ cutbacks have had a heavy impact on Coolock. The closure of of the Olhausen factory in Coolock was a major blow to the area, which meant the loss of with 45 jobs. The factory had provided employment to the local community for decades. This is just one of the many examples of job loss in the local area.

Coolock has also been hit hard by cuts in education which have effected local primary and secondary schools. The local healthcare system has also come under attack, with the vital Darndale Health Centre having its resources for the local mental health service snipped, something which could be a matter of life for death for residents.

Over the past few months there has been a unfortunate rise in “Illegal dumping” by the public in certain areas of Coolock and Darndale. These regrettable actions come as a direct consequence of extortionate price hikes by greyhound following the disastrous privatisation of Dublin City’s waste management service. Since privatisation Greyhound has treated the people of Dublin with contempt. Their outrageous actions since then includes failing to collect litter from designated collection points and most recently, the introduction of new green bags in packs of six  at a cost of 9 euro. The story behind the privatisation of Dublin’s waste management system is a clear example of why our communities should fight to defend our public services!

Over the last year éirígí has been heavily involved in the community, through our involvement with the local Coolock/Santry C.A.H.W.T (Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes)  and the  holding of our weekly information stall at the Northside Shopping Centre every Saturday. éirígí has also held many successful and informative public meetings about issue’s that effect the local community aimed at organising and mobilising the working class!

We would urge everybody in the Coolock and surrounding area that is angered by budget cutbacks and austerity to join the fight back and join éirígí.

CAHWT Occupies Northside Civic Centre

On Monday February 18th up to fifteen members of the Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes [CAHWT], including a number of éirígí activists, occupied the Northside Civic Centre in Coolock to protest against the proposed introduction of home and water taxes.

The protest, organised by the local branch of the CAHWT, was timed to coincide with the monthly Dublin North Central Area Committee Meeting, which was taking place in the Civic Centre. The Area Committee Meeting is a monthly meeting attended by local Dublin City Councillors to deal with issues affecting the North Central area. The protestors made sure that the growing opposition to home and water taxes was top of the agenda on the day with loud chanting of ‘No way, we won’t pay!’, ‘Can’t pay, won’t pay!’ and ‘Fine Gael-Labour, Out ! Out! Out!’

The latest protest in Coolock follows a series of similar CAHWT protest occupations of council chambers and buildings in Cork, Dublin City, Fingal, Kilkenny and South Dublin. Such protests are an indication of the rising anger against attempts to introduce home and water taxes and the CAHWT’s determination to lead a militant mass campaign of civil disobedience to ensure the defeat of these austerity taxes.

Speaking from the protest, éirígí spokesperson and member of the CAHWT in Dublin North East, Ciaran Heaphey, said, “Today’s protest has been a great success. The Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes organised today’s occupation to send a clear message to the local representatives of Dublin City Council and to the Fine Gael/ Labour coalition. And that message is that we intend to fight their attempts to introduce unjust home and water taxes every inch of the way.

“Over the past twelve months the CAHWT has built a strong campaign in the Coolock and Santry area. This community has rallied together to organise opposition to the first the so-called household charge and now the home and water taxes. We have no intention of paying unjust home and water taxes or to pay for the greed of a golden circle of corrupt politicians, bankers, speculators and developers. éirígí in Dublin North East has been centrally involved in this work. We believe that the CAHWT is the vehicle that can successfully defeat austerity taxes.”

Ciaran continued, “I would encourage anyone from the local area who is opposed to the introduction of unjust home and water taxes to get in contact with the local CAHWT and get involved. I would also encourage all those opposed to austerity across this state to organise similar protests in your own community and to encourage your family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues to get involved in the fight against austerity.”

Coolock Voices its Resistance to the Home Tax

21/02/13

On Thursday, February 7, the Coolock/Santry branch of the Campaign Against the Household and Water Taxes [CAHWT] met in the Kilmore West community centre to discuss this year’s introduction of the so called ‘property tax’ – Fine Gael and Labour’s latest name for their home tax.

A crowd of over forty residents from the Coolock/Santry area gathered in the centre to discuss the drastic changes surrounding the re-launched home tax. These changes include a decision by the Twenty Six County government to use the Revenue Commissioner’s extensive powers by deducting the tax at source. The original ‘household charge’ was based on self-registration and voluntary payment.

This means that the home tax will now be deducted from wages, pensions and social welfare payments prior to payment of same. And the self-employed will have the property tax added to their tax liability each year. Those at the public meeting reacted to this news with shock and horror. Members of the local community vented their anger by calling for mass opposition to the new tax and pledging their support to help the local and national campaign with pickets, protests and door to door canvassing in the future.

2013 marks the centenary of the 1913 lock out and is an important year nationally for republicans, socialists and everyone who wants to strike back against the Fine Gael/ Labour coalition and their savage cut backs. It’s also an important year for the greater Coolock area, an area that has had to endure some of the worst of the economic downturn.

Local éirígí activist Martin Farrell co-chaired the meeting alongside a fellow activist from the local CAHWT. Martin told the crowd that he was inspired by the drive in the campaign from the local community and urged everyone at the meeting to come on board and join the CAHWT as the campaign goes into the second round against the Dublin government.

Martin also urged the locals at the meeting to engage with local politicians and let them know just how bad the suffering and the fear in many working class homes has become. He pointed out that four government ministers were invited to the public meeting but, in a repeat of their response to last year’s invitations to speak with constituents, they declined the opportunity to engage with the local people yet again.

One of the campaign’s latest tactics was unveiled at the meeting, which involves giving CAHWT postcards to the public and asking them to send them on to their elected representatives with a strong anti austerity message printed on the back.

Speaking after the meeting, éirígí Dublin North East chairperson Ciaran Heaphey said, “Tonight’s meeting is another example of the growing anger in this community. We had over forty members of the public here tonight to listen to the next steps for the campaign and to share their fear and anxieties, to ask any questions they may have and ultimately to get them involved in the campaign. The number of new faces who came along tonight is inspiring and shows this campaign is ready to fight the home and water taxes and resist all government threats.”

* Join eirigi Coolock activists this Saturday the 9th at Cook street, Dublin at 13.30. 

éirígí New Year Statement 2013

01/01/13

As the hundredth anniversary year of the 1913 Lockout begins éirígí extends solidarity greetings to its members, supporters and all of those who have contributed to the struggle against imperialism and capitalism in Ireland over the last twelve months.

We look forward to 2013 with optimism, resolute in the belief that an all-Ireland Socialist Republic continues to represent the only viable alternative to the failed politics of partition, exploitation, deprivation and austerity. We enter the New Year with a renewed determination to challenge both the British occupation of our country and the exploitative economic system that currently exists across Ireland.

The popular fight back against the anti-working class policies of the Leinster House and Stormont administrations gained considerable momentum in 2012. Hundreds of thousands of families in the Twenty-Six Counties participated in the boycott of the Dublin government’s home tax. éirígí commends them for this historic and successful act of mass civil disobedience. 2013 will see the Dublin government attempt to introduce a re-formatted home tax, with domestic water taxes set to follow in 2014. These taxes will need to be met with mass collective action similar to that which defeated the 2012 home tax.

In the Six Counties ever greater numbers of people are coming to see Stormont as the White Elephant it will always be. Far from the new beginning that it was supposed to deliver, Stormont has produced nothing but the same old, tired, failed politics of the past. Despite their hollow words of protest, the coalition parties in Stormont have obediently implemented the cutbacks of their Tory masters over the last twelve months; a fact which has not gone unnoticed by communities across occupied Ireland.

éirígí believes that the austerity programmes of both states can be defeated through a sustained campaign of mass protest, industrial action, civil disobedience and direct action. Over the coming year éirígí will continue to work within working class communities to build such a campaign of resistance.

The last twelve months have seen a marked increase in the harassment and vilification of republican and socialist activists across Ireland. éirígí members and supporters have found themselves repeatedly subjected to ‘stop and searches’, attempts to recruit them as informers, house raids, arrests and imprisonment. In late November, this campaign of political policing escalated with the charging of éirígí activist Stephen Murney. As a result of these spurious charges Stephen has now spent more than a month incarcerated in Maghaberry Jail.

It is abundantly clear that Stephen has been targeted by the PSNI for no reason other than his vocal and consistent criticism of the PSNI and the Stormont regime. éirígí is calling on all republicans, socialists and others progressives to familiarise themselves with Stephen’s case and actively campaign for his immediate release.

This escalation of state harassment and oppression against éirígí has come as no surprise. All oppressive states respond in this way to effective opposition. There is nothing the Irish ruling class fears more than a resurgent revolutionary republican movement successfully mobilising the wider working class. Our activists intend to spend the next twelve months working to realise the worst fears of the ruling class. The attempts of their forces to intimidate our activists and supporters will be as unsuccessful in 2013 as they were in 2012.

Towards the end of 2012 éirígí welcomed the decision of the political prisoners in Maghaberry to end their long-running protest in support of political status. We are again calling on the British government and the prison authorities not to squander the opportunity that this brave decision affords them. Irish republicans will never accept the criminalisation of the struggle for Irish freedom, within the jails or without.

2013 will mark the hundredth anniversary of a number of critically important events including the Great Lockout, the foundation of the Irish Volunteers and the foundation of the Irish Citizen Army. The parallels between the Ireland of 1913 and the Ireland of 2013 are many. Then, as now, Britain maintained an illegal occupation of Ireland. Then, as now, workers and their families found themselves being pushed into extreme poverty to satisfy the greed of a super-wealthy elite. And then, as now, the private media and the forces of the state were mobilised to vilify and attack those who dared to resist.

One hundred years ago thousands of Irish women and men came to the conclusion that the appetite of the rich and powerful was insatiable; that national, economic, social and cultural rights have to be fought for and defended; that the key to victory lies in the creation and development of revolutionary organisations committed to the overthrow of the ancien régime.

As we enter 2013 the people of Ireland would do well to follow the example of their grandparents and great-grandparents, by taking a stand against those who would drive them into poverty and despair. To those who are ready to take that stand éirígí extends an invitation to join with us. Together we can act in the spirit of 1913 and achieve the vision of 1916.