I feel sorry for anybody trying to get home from work , people’s journeys are long enough without this kind of delay on top of it !

I don’t care what you look like. I’m disgusted by what’s obviously on the inside.

They’ll survive, Suzie. At least they have jobs.

Am I missing something? Is austerity not kinda over? Unemployment below 9% and all that. Is this just a nostalgia thing?

You’re dead right Mick. Obey the authorities, do what you’re told, don’t cause a fuss. If they’re taking money from your pocket to bail out the banks, well, I’m sure they know what’s best. Do what they say. Obey the rules. Obey. Obey. Obey.

Create a fuss, disrupt business, disrupt the lives of commuters, waste taxpayers’ money on policing these jokers…

1400 homeless kids, plus 3000 adults, plus 10′s of thousands of families facing evictions, which the banks kindly agreed to hold off on, only until after the election, to support the “recovery” fallacy, solely to keep this banker / corporate subservient Gov’t in office, would suggest otherwise.

So yes, yes you are missing something.

& that 9% figure on unemployment, is as fake as Jordans mammaries..

Joe. Your disgusted with the desire in myself to do well for myself. To work as hard as I can to earn a crust and not be an unnecessary bourdon on the state. If that’s what disgusts you, your no better than councillor McElvaney that we seen on the television last night.

walk in grab them by the face and bounce them off the pavement, its simple really :)

Sinn féin and like minded party’s is the way to go when travelling to the ballot box! #endcorruption

@Henry.
Yes, you are missing something.
Ireland’s debt clock is still counting.
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/ireland

That’s a cracker. Well done on showing how naive the country has become.

“All the protestors must be working night or are all on holiday this week.”

What sort of a person puts that in as their 2 cents on the state of this country? There is nothing there about a “desire in [yourself] to do well for [yourself]“. It is nothing but a stuck-up “I’m-alright-Jack” snide remark that you think elevates you up above people who stand up for what’s right.
Do you think that because Enda and Joan tell you we’re in recovery, then everyone should be back on building sites by now? Do you care about the FACT that they massage unemployment figures with help from Job-Bridge, emigration and suicide?
All you’re here to do is distract from the article. That makes you disgusting to me.

Two extremes on this kind of stuff, can see a bit of it ^

v1: O.B.E.Y. your ”betters”, genuflect, bow, scrape go into full peasant mode, there are no special interest the banks only love looking after your pensions and long to make your pension fund grow without skimming anything from you, only communists think capitalism is real….why in fact it’s the opposite! Were practically full on socialist did you know you can get free transport you’re on the dole? and and .

v2. Protest everything. Everything is black and white there are no greys, the government could do everything perfect and choose not to because they’re evil, if we were in charge you’d have a full general hospital in every town, be neutral while somehow also condemning the US and Isreal every other week (thus not being neutral anymore) but never Russia, banks are evil (unless the state owns them) and never do anything good for anyone, and there is nothing at all weirdly insulting about dressing down on purpose to look working class when you grew up going to fee paying schools in upper middle class/wealthy areas without facing a day of poverty or hunger in your life.

every party has said SF are toxic. a vote for SF is a vote for the IRA army council

Thomas… you have now successfully converted me to a Sinn Fein supporter. Keep up the good work.

Thomas it would never happen as much as I would love it to.We wouldn’t get as far as The Dail door.Security very tight around there….

God its a pity some of the above commentators don’t put as much vile and energy into the corruption that happens in this country by politicians. Wonder why? After all its your taxpayers money paying for these as well.

tragic littleone, just tragic :D

Mickmc is correct, how can so many afford to tramp the streets in the middle of the day. They hardly took AL, or maybe TOIL, or maybe they are all on the sick?. That has been known to happen, out in the cold while on the sick.

Dermo. .did u see the telly last night and you’re pals caught hole open? Nothing to say about that ?

I can’t stand them either Joe. People like that have held this country back for far too long by empowering the parasitic plutocrats that constantly bleed this country dry. 100 years ago they would have been standing in a muddy verge and clutching their caps as the landlords agent passed them by. That pathetically servile mentality never went away.

Quick Thomas there’s a corruption story on another thread ..oh wait it’s not sinn feint

McDermo, yep plenty of comments on that thread. Educate yourself a little.

Very true, Len. It’s not a mentality I’m ever going to adopt and I’ll always make time to call them on their pathetic BS here, lest the genuine people start to believe there really is no hope.

Someone else thinking the good oul Monday to Friday 9-5 is still alive.. If you can me in the direction of one of these jobs il gladly take it…

@christine
The majority of the working population work 9-5 ( normally 5:30). You can be pretty sure many of the protestors didn’t take a day off to protest nor happen to work other hours.

Point me in the direction

I honestly wouldn’t be so sure.. majority of workforce now work Sat & Sun therefore days off mid week etc… so I would put a grand percentage of protestors in the workforce bracket.. and it might also be worth bareing in mind that some protestors are so passionate about the rip off a country that we are they have no problem swapping round shifts an using days off so they can attend protests and make their stance.

Henry Austerity over? where have you been. Rising homelessness, soup kitchens, second highest level of low paid jobs in the developed world, health system on it knees.

makes me laugh when protesters shout NO WAY WE WONT PAY

as if those parasites ever paid for anything

Diarmuid, what is it exactly that you do for a living??? You complain about others not pulling their weight in moving the economy forward yet seem to spend your days posting here….

that “protester” with two chins wearing the grey sweat top has no idea how stupid she looks

that garda is getting paid regardless
the banks are getting paid regardless
the government are getting paid regardless
the media are using her to sell papers

what did she get today? a chance to embarrass herself

I tell you what it is Joe, I went on a protest last year when the charges were first introduced but it is the shite that was been sprouted by the sinners who take over these protests is impossible to stomach. The ordinary person is not been represented by Derek Byrne and his mafia

Thomas that is exactly what should have happened to those filthy lying corrupt FG/ FF.councilors. I never thought I would agree with you on anything but I am one hundred% with on this.

@ JayK

people like that were screaming at the Gardai before any water charge was introduced

and they’ll screaming abuse at the guards after the rest of us have paid it

people who.. dare i say it.. WORK

they work and they pay tax

that tax provides dole for the brave “protesters”

a vote for SF is a vote for murder and abuse

Well then, John your principles are about as strong and solid as wet bog roll if the actions of other people are enough for to make you roll back on them. I will play no part in burdening the next generation with relying on one single profit-spinning company for access to something that makes up two thirds of their body and they can’t survive more than a few days without.

It must seem so small change to you, after all you are the master parasite. On the dail brings in more in travel expenses per week from one side of dublin to the other than the state oap pension does in a week, so yeah i could see how the protesters would make you laugh all the way to the bank.

Littleone the I’m alright Jacks didn’t suffer any undue hardship during the relentless austerity measures slapped on the people by two successive governments, so expect a few red thumbs from the privileged and their pampered offspring.

Wonder who is paying all these people to thumb people’s comments? I wonder who. Maybe it’s like the Facebook fiasco all over .http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/fg-denies-buying-likes-on-facebook-291772.html

William its actually quite sad and comical, watching it in action. They may get a new plan , this one is so transparent and childish.

There’s 11000 views in this article, you’ve about 15 red thumbs and you think there’s a conspiracy against you?

What’s even hilarious. Is they are ignoring John fairclough comment. They must be afraid to draw attention to it. Being used so candidly last night by a fg politician.

You’re like some mad fella arguing with the walls, and losing

Sorry … they dont sell gold bullion ,,…fact i know

About 100 protesters stormed the BOI college green earlier. The majority of them thought it was the Central Bank. I shit you not

The austerity denied them an education.

Forgetting for a min points that could be made like “if we’d broken up the banks earlier we’d not have needed to make the bailout decisions as it would not have arisin.” there is a kind of irony in an anti-austerity group protesting at BOI.

If the decision had been to not bail out the banks. It would have taken years for new banks to come in and pick through the bones of the old system. Unemployment would have been twice as big, and the recession twice as long, probably with a bigger deficit too, and peoples savings and deposits going bye bye…so basically way way WAY more austerity with less scope for a safety net.
I was against the bailouts but some of these people seem to think there was an easy solution (get it off Micheal O’Leary) on the menu instead of 3-4 terrible ones, Even if we had taxed every ultra-wealthy person in Ireland at 70% and seized all their assets (which we could only sell off once so it would only work for one year) which itself would have been unconstitutional and the courts would have struck down anyway…the deficit was 40b, there was no way of plugging that hole by taxing a tiny tiny tiny number of people.

Well put Ryan. It’s also important to note that these protesters are really only against water charges and the fact they lost their Christmas bonus on the dole. They didn’t protest like this for the introduction of the usc. They are anti everything including work

‘Well put Ryan. It’s also important to note that these protesters are really only against water charges and the fact they lost their Christmas bonus on the dole. They didn’t protest like this for the introduction of the usc. They are anti everything including work’

Jesus wept. Would you ever throw yourself in a bin and spare us more rubbish like this. Really. This makes reading The Sun look like a worthwhile option

Why Andrew did he touch a nerve.

Thr truth is Andrew. For instance, All your pals in jobstown had no problem sitting in the boozer spending other people’s money when the first round of austerity hit. It was only when they felt it through water charges

thats an ignorant comment !

Ah yeh the wonderful Christmas bonus, which you can only get if you are on jobseekers longer than 15months and can’t get at all if you have the nerve to be on illness benefit for cancer or some other major problem, regardless how long you are on it…what a lovely magical gift it is…too good for us really…

WHEN THEY SHOULD have been protesting was in 2002 when there was still time to prevent all this. Instead of telling those of us who said “seriously I think that’s an iceberg over there” we were ‘doom and gloomers’, they demanded more tax cuts mixed with higher spending, the words “banking regulation” were never uttered, they all swanned gleefully into the banks to get loan after loan after loan, and the middle class got duped into thinking they were rich when they were conned into thinking credit and wealth are the same thing and began a keep up with the joneses game with holiday homes in spain and Bulgarian apartments..now suddenly everyones a damn monday morning quarterbacker who “knew it couldn’t last”. That would have been the better time to protest

I disagree with you. The water issue brought together the people of Ireland who took austerity in good faith and knuckled down to pay the banks off to save Ireland but it was only when the corruption of IW came to light they began to question other things and educate each other on the other issues and then realised how many things in Ireland are corrupt and wrong. IW brought the people together like nothing else could have. Most of the people protesting didn’t pay but are struggling with USC Property tax, mortgages, high rents, ill health, and increased taxes and charges and cuts across the whole population. Most have hade savage wage cuts, increased work loads and increased costs loaded on them over and over and they cant take anymore. Many are seriously ill due to the long waits now in the Health Service for treatment. This government has been shown time and time again to break promises and look after their own circle and spend our money recklessly in the places that profit them most and cripple the rest of us.. The people have woken up now.They are all corrupt. That’s why the people are protesting. Its not just about water anymore.

Ryan,

“If the decision had been to not bail out the banks. It would have taken years for new banks to come in and pick through the bones of the old system.”

That’s not really the case though. A commercial banking default is not a sovereign default. What the Irish government needed to do in Sept 2008 was to take the entire commercial banking system under state control to keep the branches, payments system and ATMs etc functioning etc. This would have given the state time to assess the banks balance sheets, liquidate the assets and impose losses on the creditors such as bondholders while guaranteeing deposits. In parallel the government would oversee the process of establishing new banks to replace the old failed institutions.

The commercial banking system can take whatever form it’s host nation wishes to serve the society and the economy. It’s important to understand that a commercial bank is simply an institution which the government has licensed to create money (and charge interest) in order to meet requests for credit/loans. The bulk of money in circulation in the world today is created electronically by the commercial banks when they make loans. In issuing credit, banks create brand new deposits in the bank accounts of the borrowers by the simple act of pressing a computer keyboard.

This is a function that can be performed by any institution with the necessary staff, branches, IT infrastructure etc and a license from the central bank. To resolve the crisis, it was simply a matter of the government retaining the necessary physical infrastructure and people, liquidating the assets of the failed banks, paying off the creditors in order of preference with appropriate haircuts of up to 100%, moving the deposits to the newly licensed institutions and changing the sign over the door.

Ryan you’re out of place here, your posts are the only sensible ones on here.

It seems to be about protesting for the sake of protesting. I’ve seen it myself, 30 protesters sitting on o’connell bridge for 3 hours during rush hour bringing the city to a halt. Not a days work in their lives between them. I can tell you know, the people I’ve seen in these protests don’t worry about usc or property taxes or mortgages. They care only for what effects them. They don’t care that on average 1000 jobs a week are being created because they don’t want one of the jobs. They just want to get other people’s hard earned money for doing nothing.

Cholly what crap? Do you know the personal circumstances of every protestor. Pity you and your pals don’t get so upset and make vile comments to do with politicians and corruption. Your all quiet then?

Wally you’d make my Christmas to see you post a one or Two line witty comment in retaliation to blueshirts instead of Stephen king novels :)

Chilly. .maybe they could be ff/fg/lab councillors you tosser

I suppose it didn’t occur to you cholly with such a narrow minded outlook that the Water Charges were the final straw for people who had it up to their ears in austerity. Water charges that were not only exorbitant but a body that was been set up perfectly for privitisation and all the cronyism that comes with privitisation and you see nothing wrong with that??.

I’ll see what I can do over the next couple of weeks Mr. Nova

Reading some of the comments is depressing you no what we deserve everything we get because the majority of people are happy with a few scraps they get off the table instead of getting what we deserve. The same idiots will be re elected and nothing will change. We will still be trying to hang on to a crummie job getting feck all for it making someone else rich because the majority of people in the country don’t have the balls to do anything about it!

No Vincent. The majority of the people in the country are honest hard working people. They are happy in their home life and happy they are happy in their jobs. Luke yoy, we all dont have “crummie jobs”. Yes we bailed out the banks and we are paying for it now but the alternative was far worse. The country is growing again and the hard working people are getting back on their feet. It doesn’t all have to be anti establishment.

Sorry, the protesters are against the lying thieving politicians who said they had alternatives to the Fianna Fail / Troike austerity to get elected.

When elected the Labour’s Way or Frankfurt’s Way, not another cent to bond holders (Fine Gael) were quickly forgotten and we (as usual) ended up with the same government as the previous Fianna Fail one, just different names / faces in the comfortable Dail seats.

Water charges were the final straw for people who have witnessed their country being sold to vulture funds who take substantial profits from the bail outs that the people have provided.

The “Christmas Bonus” is back, many if not most of the protesters do work, many for low pay so it could be argued the ones who feel the austerity measures most are the ones protesting.

I and I expect many others like me would have been on that protest except for the fact that Derek Byrne and his like have ruined peaceful protesting.

For the record I work an average of 65 hours per week.

Well said Vincent. It’s easier to sit behind a screen and complain or go against everything as many of these commenters do. Its a little different getting out in the cold and marching for a better future. Lazy fools. You only had to watch last nights program to see who is scratching who’s balls.

@Teena. You’re spot on.

Are you YFG Cholly? I only ask because your dillusional and your sprouting crap? Tis hard thing to change Mary but peolple have to unite together unfortunately Ireland doesnt look like its ready for real change. As we seen in Lowrys case up in Tipperary same thing will happen everywhere. oh be Jasus but sure he did great things for the parish be gorra

@cholly did you personally interview them and get their PPS details to ascertain this!?

Wally , that was only one sentence ,that’s impressive for you .. Well done .

What is wrong with you, people are fed up with corrupt politicians and anti austerity protesters, we are al. Just stuck in the middle listening to all this waffle.

Protestors are as bad as the politicians at this stage. If they want to make a difference why don’t they get involved in politics and do something about it from the inside. Let them run in their localities and they’ll soon see that not as many people support them as they naively think.

Nope Nigel I didn’t but I can tell you one thing, when you see the same people on the news occupying Grange gorman or at pro Palestine protest you realise they don’t work. The other half from jobstown openly admit to being unemployed snd blame the government for this. Maybe their just unemployable and uneducated

So true

what a fool you are

you need a new script this one is growing old

top 300 in this country grew their wealth from 50b o 85 b in last 4 yrs- fact what do 300 people do with 85b?- maybe they could have paid the bailout instead of exploiting the rest of us who were put on our knees- through cuts and increased taxes and service costs. Well let us rise. Wake up it was a grand theft from the ord person to the rich- cos of austerity in consecutive cus is 116b… not our debt!

@ Mary Ward

marching for a better future ??????????????

Why would people that don’t pay USC protest it ?

There was protests about it,I was at them. Enough people just didn’t grasp at the time what the impact of it was going to be. They received paltry media coverage too. It’s unfair to say it’s just the long term unemployed marching today,I took a half day off work for the last weekday protest like many I know. Truth be told if all the unemployed took to the streets they’d be full.

@FM
I received a pamphlet from the same anti water charges protesters. On it was a list of cuts/taxes. Dole, Children’s allowances, Christmas bonus, Telephone, fuel, and on it went. USC was 15th on the list. That’s 15th out of 20 items. No mention of property tax as this lot doing the shouting every Sunday lunchtime live in council properties and don’t pay that either. Don’t know why the social welfare did not call them all for job interviews today. If they missed the interviews the dole is cut off.

They don’t protest against the us as they don’t pay it

The USC was brought in as a direct tax so no amount of protesting coyld change it. The water charges were a utility, people were going to be in a position to refuse to register and/or pay for it so it was the obvious issue to protest over.

Wrong fm sheep don’t protest and that’s what’s wrong with this country. If you felt so strong about usc and property tax why did you not do something about it. No your happy to Slag off other people who are prepared to do something about the corrupt way this country is run.

Why aren’t you there Joe?

@goldfornothing so it’s better to just stay quiet and accept the status quo in your opinion, right? Better not to rock the boat? Better to let the government do what they want?

If the people of 1916 had that attitude, we’d have David Cameron as our Prime Minister right now!

Because people are understandably outraged, Suzie. Sitting around scratching @rses and moaning around the water cooler isn’t getting us anywhere. When hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets about the water charges, they won the concessions everybody’s availing of today… or are all the “respectable” people here paying what was originally asked of them? Did everybody give their PPS numbers in the end?
I can’t stand the poisonous few who complain about the complainers while our “betters” are laughing at every one of us.

Reduce obesity levels?

I’ve no more days to take off work, Mark, and I have a few other things going on that demand some of my time. You don’t know everything about everyone, believe it or not.

What concessions did they win exactly?

Denis… it’s better to stay quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Do a bit of reading.

In fairness to Joe, hundreds of thousands of people marching would improve public health and reduce the burden on our health system.

Very incisive Joe.

That’s nice joe, labelling someone who dares ask you a question as a fool.

Tells me everything I need to know about you and your little throwaway Twitter account.

Here’s the rundown, this little charade of a protest cost the taxpayer money in a number of ways:

-extra gardai, most on overtime, to police it.
-stopping people Getting into/out of the city centre, affecting local commerce.
-paying bank staff to do nothing while they are evacuated.

But yeah this is all about the taxpayer and the burden the people are shouldering.

” i am one of 50% of the country who have paid
the opponents of it speak for the 100%
they claim figures
they claim a mandate on behalf of the entire country
50% of the country are just as angry as they are
We’re angry because we’re carrying them on our back ”

Claire Byrne Live audience member
Sep 14, 2015

@ Denis O Donovan

they are beyond stupid if they think protesting the banks will EVER solve anything

I don’t, I’m completely against the protests, where have I suggested otherwise??

@ Denis O Donovan

you’re completely against the protests?

well then it is a pleasure to meet you my friend

@ Joe Phillips

before during and shortly after Christmas this country will spend millions on alcohol

we need water

its one of the few things we genuinely need in this world and some of us don’t want to pay for it

that makes me sad :(

@ Miguel O’Reilly

we’d have David Cameron as our Prime Minister right now???????

Cameron is murdering people in Syria
Kenny is enabling murder via shannon

we’d be a target either way

Flexi part time zero hours arse contracts, My friend

I think you missed the point there ..

But you know that’s not true, they’re workshy wasters!

Yeah those full time protestors that pop up at every event, country wide, sure do have a lot of time off to take! I’d love their jobs for sure.

Wow! I didn’t think ppl like justin would have the absolute gall to mouth off today, with all the corruption & fraud his blue shirt hero’s were exposed as only last night, for all to see.

That’s just their hard neck, stupidity and ignorance that makes up their repulsive characters I have to say….

Fact is we’ve no idea the employment situation of those protesting. Unless You Want To Pop Down And Ask Them It’s Really NOT Our Place To generalise or assume their situation