Around The Country

GALWAY: THE Government’s approach to dealing with the economy can be characterised as the “Galway tent golden circle”, Impact…

GALWAY:THE Government's approach to dealing with the economy can be characterised as the "Galway tent golden circle", Impact assistant general secretary Pádraig Mulligan told some 6,000 participants in the Galway city demonstration.

Feathering the “nests” of “senior bankers, builders and speculators” is “not what so many people worked so hard for”, he said at the Spanish Arch.

“This Government is engaged in self-preservation at all costs, while the most vulnerable pay the price,” he said. “We will not allow a wedge to be driven between the public and private sector as a distraction from reality.”

In this crisis, the “greatest burden must be borne by those with the broadest shoulders . . . the wealthy must pay their way.”

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John Carty of Mandate said that employees “must not be fragmented” and private sector workers must resists wage cuts by companies who would use the recession to erode pay and conditions.

Anne Fergus, chair of the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed, said social welfare payments must not be cut, including payments to young people who could not find jobs.

Public sector trade union banners dominated yesterday's march in rain and fresh winds, with a smaller number of private sector workers also attending, including west of Ireland representatives of the National Union of Journalists. LORNA SIGGINS

WATERFORD

Some 9,000 people took to the streets of Waterford yesterday in support of the Ictu day of action.

Heavy rain lifted in time for the march, which started from the Glen, wending its way down Bridge Street to the Quay on to the Mall and back through the main business areas of Michael Street, Patrick Street and through Ballybricken. The protesters, walking four abreast, occupied most of the centre of the city.

Led by mayor John Halligan and trade union leaders, they were supported by a cacophony of car horns from the stalled motorists as they chanted “What do we want? Fair play. When do we want it? Now.” and later, “Lenihan, Cowen, Coughlan, Out, Out, Out.”

Trade unionists from Waterford, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford and Carlow participated, including many branches and sections of Siptu, the Frontline Services Alliance, the Garda Representative Association, the Fire Service, the three teacher organisations, the Irish Nurses Organisation, CPSU, TEEU, Mandate and groups representing retired public sector workers and community organisations.

Tom Hogan, president of the Waterford Trades Council, told the crowd that the fair and better solution that workers wanted would only come about as a direct result of the resistance workers put up to the programme the Government was proposing.

Marie Butler of Siptu said the Government was in denial. Cuts in social welfare would see children going to bed hungry.

Jimmy Kelly, regional secretary of Unite, said the only way to protect private sector pay was to protect public sector pay. "Today is the start of a campaign and unless we stick it out and step it up into industrial action, they will trample on what we have." ELLA SHANAHAN

TULLAMORE

A union leader predicted “anarchy” and advocated the use of “physical force” to prevent banks repossessing homes if reforms are not made. “Unless we get some reform we are going to have to take physical action to prevent these people being put out of their homes,” TEEU general secretary Eamon Devoy said at the Ictu demonstration in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

An estimated 4,000 public and private sector union members paraded through the streets of town for the day of action.

Impact’s Denis Rohan outlined Ictu’s 10-point plan for national recovery. He noted the use of limousines and the Government jets by certain Ministers. “We have, unfortunately, an inept and incompetent Government that failed miserably to exploit for the benefit of the Irish people the wealth created by the so-called Celtic Tiger,” he said.

Siptu regional secretary, Christy McQuillan criticised “some of the media” for arguing that pay cuts needed to be taken while “some of these people” earned “six-figure wages”.

The media were also singled out by Mr Devoy, who accused them of creating division between public and private sector workers.

Although the protest was in the same town as the Taoiseach's constituency office, Brian Cowen was not singled out for criticism. EOGHAN MacCONNELL

SLIGO

Taoiseach Brian Cowen was advised yesterday to “take on the big guys”rather than ordinary workers, as close to 5,000 people attended the Ictu rally in Sligo.

Anne McGowan, a local Irish Nurses Organisation representative, said the Government wanted to cut the pay of gardaí,nurses and paramedics who were on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week “while the bankers sleep safely in their comfortable beds”.

Ms McGowan said Mr Cowen had spoken of the need to make hard decisions but it was more important to make the right decisions. “It is very easy to take on the small man and the small woman while the big guys grow fat in their corporate boxes in Croke Park,” she said.

A number of union leaders condemned the Government for creating “a phoney war” between the public and private sectors. Siptu’s John McCarrick said it was time to nail the lie that there was a divide between the public sector and private sector workers.

Jennifer Gallagher, an Impact member and special needs assistant, said this generation of children with special needs was the first to get their God-given right to an education, “but will we now turn back the clock?”

Impact representative Richie Carruthers said that since January, 1,200 special needs assistant posts had been cut and Colm McCarthy had proposed that a further 2,000 of these workers, "on a €15 an hour fat-cat salary", should also be let go. MARESE McDONAGH

DUNDALK

The Government and the Taoiseach will underestimate the strength of feeling of public sector workers at their “peril,” protesters in Dundalk were told.

About 1,500 mainly public sector workers and their supporters applauded a hard- hitting and rousing address from Isobel Murphy of Impact who accused the Government of “wanting us to pay for somebody else’s mistakes”.

She accused the Taoiseach “and his media cronies” of making “bashing” public sector workers “into a national pastime”.

John King of Siptu said that the property bubble created a false economy and the Government had “prioritised the bailing out of those in the banks and property sector”.

Single mother-of-two Donna McDonagh travelled from Ardee. She said she could not survive if there were any cuts in her social welfare benefits.

“I am here to object to any cuts in it, I have two children aged 5 months and 2 years and it’s hard enough to survive as it is. If they cut any more I won’t be able to.”

Cavan County Council worker Peter Crosby said: “I have two children to put through college and a daughter with disabilities where the HSE has cut funding to the workshop she goes to by 3 per cent.”

“We are all fed up with the current Government,” said Margaret Reilly, a HSE worker in Drogheda.

"Our hospitals are third world standard. Look how the Government has treated the sick who are an easy target." ELAINE KEOGH

THE NORTH

Trade unionists rallying at Belfast City Hall urged the Stormont Executive to confront the economic crisis.

Ictu assistant general secretary Peter Bunting told about 500 protesters that expected cuts would damage the local economy, which is hugely reliant on the public sector.

“The fact that we have lost 43,000 jobs in the past year means that the private sector can no longer play its full role in adding stimulus and demand to the economy,” he said.

Ten protests were held across Northern Ireland – in Ballymena, Co Antrim; Derry, Coleraine and Magherafelt in Co Derry; Newry, Co Down; Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh; Omagh, Co Tyrone; and Armagh and Craigavon, Co Armagh.

Mr Bunting said the Executive “is no longer fit for purpose”.

“They squabble over the devolution of policing and justice. They prevaricate over education, they cannot agree on a Bill of Rights, they have no clear

shared method to tackle sectarianism and racism," he said. He said workers should challenge the consensus that cuts were inevitable in public services "because we just have to keep the bankers in the luxury and bonuses to which they have become accustomed". DAN KEENAN