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The Labour Party's Eighth Amendment referendum posters Jan O'Sullivan TD

'An attempt to suppress democracy': Removal of Labour's referendum posters reported to gardaí

A member of the public sent a video of people removing the Yes posters in Limerick city to Jan O’Sullivan TD.

FORMER MINISTER FOR Education Jan O’Sullivan has reported the removal of the Labour Party’s referendum posters in Limerick city to gardaí.

O’Sullivan received calls from members of the public over the weekend informing her that some of the Labour Party’s Yes posters for the upcoming Eighth Amendment referendum had been taken down.

The Limerick TD told TheJournal.ie that the party had put up around 80 posters in the Limerick city area over the past few weeks. She said that around half of them have been removed.

O’Sullivan said that she had initially noticed that some posters may have been taken down last Friday and she subsequently put a call out on Twitter asking for anyone who may have seen anything to come forward.

She said that one member of the public sent a video of people removing the posters from one area of the city at around 11.30pm one night last week.

“Most of our posters in the city have already been taken down. I was very angry first of all. Our lads work voluntarily and they were up until about 4am one night putting [the posters] up,” O’Sullivan told TheJournal.ie. 

I strongly believe in democracy and I don’t believe you can silence people because you don’t believe them.

“This is just purely trying to suppress democracy and I would go so far as to say it smacks of fascism,” she said.

O’Sullivan said she reported the removal of the posters to gardaí in Limerick at around 6.30pm on Saturday.

Upon request for a statement from TheJournal.ie, gardaí said: “An Garda Síochána does not comment on material displayed in public places by third parties but will respect the rights of all concerned and investigate each case or complaint on its own merits and seek a direction from the Director of Public Prosecutions.” 

A referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment, which gives equal constitutional status to the mother and the unborn, will be held on Friday 25 May.

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    Mute Chris O Neill Cabra
    Favourite Chris O Neill Cabra
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    Aug 17th 2015, 12:12 PM

    ”That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

    The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

    Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

    The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

    It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

    Carl Sagan

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Aug 17th 2015, 3:28 PM

    Amazing quote.

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    Mute Rehabmeerkat
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    Aug 17th 2015, 6:13 PM

    that’s not a quote it’s a short story

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    Mute Norman Hunter
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    Aug 17th 2015, 11:45 AM

    Amazing picture.

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    Mute luke frankus
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    Aug 17th 2015, 12:00 PM

    it makes us look like a giant marble…

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    Mute Gary
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    Aug 17th 2015, 12:30 PM

    Luke, you mean like a giant ellipsoid or an oblate spheroid.

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    Mute luke frankus
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    Aug 17th 2015, 12:32 PM

    that’s exactly what I mean, Gary.

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    Mute Bobby Neary
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    Aug 17th 2015, 11:53 AM

    I’d say he wished he brought some LSD….that would be some light show then ..

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    Mute Lindsay Price
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    Aug 17th 2015, 11:55 AM

    Yeah cause it’s not like he’s working or anything.

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    Mute Brendan
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    Aug 17th 2015, 11:50 AM

    Seen these for real and magical is the way I would describe them

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