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PROTESTERS FROM THE Occupy Dame Street movement temporarily occupied the offices of the Referendum Commission in Dublin city this afternoon.
The group said in statements posted on Twitter and Facebook that the action was being staged in protest over the Commission’s publication of an information leaflet.
The leaflet was distributed to households around Ireland ahead of the Fiscal Compact referendum by the Commission, which describes itself as “an independent body set up by law to give a neutral explanation of the referendum proposal and to encourage people to vote”.
ODS accused the Commission of delivering the leaflet late “so that people wouldn’t have a chance to read, research and understand it”. It also accused the Commission of bias and a “misleading representation of the #Fiscal Treaty”, adding that it couldn’t be trusted.
Gardaí were called to the Referendum Commission offices this afternoon after around ten people from the movement entered and occupied the premises.
The protesters subsequently left the offices and gardaí have maintained a presence at the property throughout this afternoon, according to staff at the office.
A spokesperson for the Referendum Commission told TheJournal.ie that she believes ODS has inaccurate and factually incorrect information about the Commission.
She said that based on the group’s comments online, she thinks the demonstrators may have actually been protesting a different leaflet other than that produced by the Referendum Commission.
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Richard Boyd Barrett supports central planning, a Soviet style system of economic organization that impoverished countless millions, that is incompatible with democracy and economic prosperity. Why does Mr Barrett think that out of the millions of economists in the world, not even a handful agree with the ‘learned analysis’, of this secondary school left wing English teacher? It irrelevant to Mr Barrett that capitalism and private enterprise has improved the standard of living of the ordinary man more than anything else; its relevant to Mr Barrett that the most capitalistic country in Latin America is the most rich, has the lowest corruption level, has the highest GDP, highest real income per capita, lowest amount living below the poverty line, lowest infant mortality rate, etc its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that Hong kong and Singapore are among the richest countries in the world with higher incomes that Sweden, Germany, France, the Uk etc etc; its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that millions have been taken out of ineffably atrocious poverty in China with the implementation of free-market capitalistic reform, its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that the poor is capitalistic countries are wealthier than the average people in state socialist countries or that obesity is more of a problem among the poor in capitalistic countries than among the rich. Barrett doesn’t care that prices don’t allocate resources in a socialist economy, that they don’t reflect supply and demand, that they don’t reflect scarcity; Barrett doesn’t care that socialism kills incentives to innovate, and for economic growth, kills the right to set up a business, and creates endless waste and dead weight loss, monumental shortfalls in total surplus; in fact he doesn’t care about facts, or the truth, he knows what he likes and doesn’t want to hear anything else; don’t little little things like the evidence or truth get in the way of his endless inarticulate regurgitation of yesterdays fallacies of central planning, soviet nostrums, erroneous assumptions and emotion-laden invective. A backbench ranter with laughable views.
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