More than 2,000 people attended the Right to Work protest at the Dail. This was represented an increase on the protest of the previous Tuesday. The real significance is that people stood up to the media scare mongering which tried to reduce numbers with headlines about ‘Gardai in secret Riot training’.

The tactic of the corporate media is to give prominent publicity to union leaders who tell workers that there is ‘no alternative ‘ to accepting 17,000 jobs losses in the public sector and to try to marginalise those who engage in real protest as having a  hidden agenda of violence.

The Right to Work protest was a show of strength against these media lies. Far from reducing in size, the movement has actually started to grow and become more politicised.

Speaking at the march, Brendan Ogle from the UNITE union called for a broad alliance to drive the present government out of office.

Eugene McDonagh,  a victimised trade unionists from Dublin Bus, described how he had been forced out of his job because he stood by his members in resisting cuts to the bus services. Despite the presence of the Green Party in government over 200 busies have been withdrawn from the Dublin fleet.

Therese Shallow told the crowd how the Crumlin hospital could be saved if a fraction of the money spent of the banks were spent on the health service.

Kieran Allen told the march that a concerted campaign had to be waged in the unions against the Fianna Fail collaborators who were pushing the Croke Park deal.

At the start of the protest, two actors dressed as Louse 14th and Marie Antoinette told the crowd that they had better support t heir local aristocracy by digging deeper for more bail outs.

After spirited speeches, music and political theatre the protest marched back to the GPO with the slogans about ‘Power to the People’ and ‘ The Workers United Will never be defated’

Next Tuesday the protest movement returns to the Dail for its third successive protest. Assemble 7.30 outside the gates of Dail Eireann to tell Cowen he has got to go.

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