Protests Call For Cancellation Of EU/IMF Deal

At a press conference today in Dublin organised by the Enough campaign - a campaign established earlier this year to oppose the EU-IMF austerity programme - public representatives, trade unionists, special needs and debt campaigners and others launched a series of protests, meetings and events that will take place during the visit of the EU-IMF delegation between today and July 16th.

The Enough campaign is calling for a cancellation of the EU-IMF deal and a repudiation of the debts of the private banking debts that have been imposed on the Irish people. The campaign is calling on the Irish public and all those facing austerity attacks or who have been affected by the austerity policies resulting from the bail-out of the banks to take to the streets as the Greek, Egyptian and Spanish people have in recent weeks.

In attendance at the press conference were: Richard Boyd Barrett TD, Joan Collins TD, Thomas Pringle TD, Jimmy Kelly (Regional Secretary, Unite), Andy Storey (AfrI), Adrienne Murphy (Special Needs Parent & Campaigner) and special guest speaker from Greece Cllr. Giannis Koutras.

The protests will commence today at 1pm with a demonstration outside the Dept of Finance and opposite the Merrion Hotel, where the EU-IMF delegation are believed to be staying.

A public launch meeting of the ten days of protest will take place later in the evening with the same speakers at 7.30pm at the Gresham Hotel, O Connell St.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD said: “We are here to call for an uprising of people power against the economic lunacy and gross injustices of the EU/IMF deal and the bail out of the bankers and the bond holders. The EU/IMF and their agents in our government are applying a form of economic cannibalism to this country. The admission by Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, that lenders to Ireland in the EU/IMF deal will make more than €9bn in profit is proof of what we have said all along. This is not a bail out for Ireland, this is just a profiteering bonanza for the bankers and speculators that caused the crisis in the first place. It will amount to the burial of the Irish economy and the crushing of the least well off and the most vulnerable sectors of our society. It will not aid economic recover it will strip us of the assets and resources that we need to create jobs and bring about recovery.”

(BMcN)