Yesterday (Sept 10 2003) Fingal council attempted to start refusing to collect the bins of those who not paying the bin tax. This morning the campaign in the Dublin city area swung into action. Non-payers bins are still being collected in this area so our first move was a lobby of the depots that the trucks leave from each morning.
Yesterday Fingal council attempted to start refusing to collect the bins of those who not paying the bin tax. Of the ten trucks they sent out it now appears that all ten were successfully blocked by bin tax activists.
The council started in the morning by admitting 4 were blocked later this rose to 6 and by the evening RTE were reporting "protesters are continuing to block three refuse trucks in Blanchardstown, north Dublin. A further seven have now been allowed by protesters in Blanchardstown and Portmarnock to return to their depot." According to an indymedia report street meetings involving hundreds of people in the Blanchardstown area decided to let the last trucks return to depot just before ten tonight.
This morning the campaign in the Dublin city area swung into action. Non-payers bins are still being collected in this area so our first move was a lobby of the depots that the trucks leave from each morning. These were to be good natured and friendly as we have already built good relations with many bin workers (a lot of whom are also non payers).
Pic: Grangegorman bring centre lobby
I took part in the lobby of the depot at Grangegormon. This went from 7am to 8am and over 35 local activists took part. As only around 24 hours notice was given of the lobby this was a very good turn out.
On the way to work we passed a bin truck and so stopped to leaflet the crew. It turned out that they had come out of the Rathmines depot where there was also a good lobby and so had lots of leaflets already. Reports on other actions should be appearing on indymedia.ie.
Tomorrow in Cabra it is our intention to blockade selected trucks as a gesture of solidarity with activists in Fingal and to warn the council that any attempt at non-collection will see blockades across the city. We believe that council strategy is to try and target areas where the campaign is weak but continue to collect all bins where the campaign is strong. We should not accept this, non-collection in ANY city area should be met by blockades in EVERY city area.
These next couple of weeks will be vital in defeating this latest tactic by the council. We have got off to a very good start but it is essential that everyone gets active in their area so that all trucks are blockaded. This could be the councils last desperate card, in the next couple of weeks we should be able to defeat the hated bin tax.
087 283 7989 – Campaign Hotline number
Additional pictures of this demonstration and discussion
WORDS Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )