Hundreds march against Bin Tax in Dublin

dublin | bin tax / household tax / water tax | news report Saturday February 26, 2005 19:51 by Dave Lordan - swp

report on bin tax march

A short report on the bin tax march today

Hundreds of people marched in through Dublin today in protest at the continuing refusal of city councils to provide a public waste collection service for their tax-paying citizens.
Though small by comparison with marches held at the height of the bin tax controversy in 2003, when the media focused heavily on the jailing of campaign activists, the march was broadly representative of working class communities across greater Dublin. It was evidence of a campaign which, though slandered by the right, shunned by the SIPTU leadership and the Labour Party, and hampered by internal divisions, is showing a remarkable resilience in the city's working class heartlands.
There were groups of bin tax campaigners from Shankill, Bray, Dun Laoghaoire, Loughlinstown, Crumlin, Phibsboro, Balbriggan, Clondalkin, Ringsend, East Wall, Cabra, Drimnagh, Templeogue, Ballfermot and elsewhere. A number of council bin workers from the Grangegorman depot also attended.
The SIPTU education branch carried their banner on the march and a letter of protest was handed into liberty hall by SIPTU activists angered at the unions failure to support the campaign.
There were also banners and placards from SWP, Sinn Fein , and the Socialist Party as well as from the Dublin Council of Trade Unions.
There were speakers from all of the above as well as from Mick O Reilly of the ATGWU, the one union, which to its great credit, is 100% behind the campaign. Stalwart campaigner, and independent Socialist councilor, Joan Collins, also addressed the crowd.
Statements of support from the Association of Combined Residents Associations and the Zero Waste Alliance were read out . The support of ZWA, an environmental group, marks an important broadening of the campaign into the environmental movement.
Organisers said the this was only one in the continuing series of protests that are currently taking place about the bin tax. They praised the hundreds of bin tax activists that turned up to the march and called on them to continue to build the campaign in their local areas.