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A GIANT MAY Day march held in central Dublin this afternoon put Ireland’s homeless crisis firmly in the spotlight.
Thousands gathered from 2pm for a march that began at the Garden of Remembrance off O’Connell Street.
May Day is traditionally seen as international workers day, with solidarity protests held across the globe.
Homeless campaigner Fr Peter McVerry used the occasion to call for ‘an effective public home building programme’ at a rally held at Liberty Hall following the march with the firm message that ‘housing is a right, not a privilege’.
Speaking at the rally, McVerry said that the government’s housing strategy is clearly not working as homelessness is increasing, and that it is time for “more radical measures”.
He called for evictions of people by banks to stop unless those people have secured alternative accommodation.
Siptu had billed the march as serving to “highlight the opposition of trade unions and housing activists to a Government plan to sell off local authority land to private developers”.
“Our view at the Dublin Council of Trade Unions (DCTU) was that it was very important do something on housing, so this march represents a broad coalition of all interested charities, and we were really delighted to host it,” Pat Bolger, president of DCTU, told TheJournal.ie.
We’re calling for a programme of public housing to ease the current crisis. The government ministers’ reliance on the private sector is just unrealistic at this stage.
We don’t think that people want to hurt the homeless, but it’s an inevitable consequence of the policies currently being pursued.
“We intend to keep campaigning,” Bolger added. “We’re committed to this coalition.”
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Dammit Aoife! I had plans today! Now I have the urge to watch the sopranos from the very beginning! I have work in the morning!
Sorry Matt! ;)
Best ending ever! The only other that even came close was Birdy.
Still miss ya Tony.
I know, but there’s no reason to be posting it in public – my girlfriend’s a member of the internets too – she could see this.
RE: the ending of the show – I think it was the viewer that got ‘whacked’.
A few episodes back where Tony was in a boat and there was talk about how a sudden death might occur – all you would see is sudden blackness… That set the scene up for the final one. The viewer never saw it coming and then it was all over! You were watching everything going on in the cafe – then suddenly blackness… You were gone from the show forever more.
I think I agree especially considering the song ,”don’t stop believing ” basically breaks the fourth wall and reminds us of the fictionality of the whole sopranos world but also let’s it exist permanently due to the absence of finality.reminds me of the end of Waugh’s a handful of dust. This guy takes another view however and gives very detailed reasons why : https://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
Clearly Tony was killed. Watch the camera shot sequence as each person enters the restaurant. We should see meg from Tony’s POV but instead we get darkness. Death, just as he predicted.
Who’s meg?
Sopranos was absolutely compulsive viewing but I felt the ending was a complete farce. Black screen? Give me a break! It was a complete cop out, the ultimate “we don’t know how to end this but let’s do it so it’s an end or maybe isn’t”. I’ll always be grateful to Chase for giving us the greatest show of its era but will never forgive him for the ending. It was just wrong on every level.
I thought it was a classic ending. Brilliant final episode.
The best interpretation I heard was that basically nothing happens. As in, day to day life continues as normal for Tony.
Just because the cameras aren’t rolling for us viewers, life goes in like it always did for Tony.
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