Monday night (Sept 2nd 2002) saw another picket of the Dublin corporation council meeting to protest the continuing attempt to impose bin charges on the cities population. According to the corporations own figures less then 50% of people paid any of their bill last year. With the success of non-payment to date only around 20% have paid something so far this year.
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.
The Cabra/Dunard/Navan campaign activists had lobbied the Grangegorman depot Thursday morning and in solidarity with activists in Fingal decided to blockade one of the Cabra routes for one hour this morning (Sept 12 2003).
As Fingal council took a High Court case against bin tax protesters this morning (Sept 17 2003) bin tax campaigners in Cabra blockaded two trucks in solidarity with Fingal campaigners. Our intention is to hold onto at least one of these two trucks all day.
Monday evening (Sept 2003) in Dublin saw a Reclaim the Streets demonstration joining up with an anti-bin tax march demanding the release of two imprisoned activists. At the Garden of Remembrance there were already around 1,000 people, this would rise to 3,000 by the time the march departed.
The opening of the Dail on Tuesday 30 September (2203) after the long, long holidays the TD’s get saw a somewhat disappointing bin tax protest on the streets outside. Disappointing because while 4,000 or so marched last week only 10% of this number turned up for the Dail protest.
Last nights (Oct 1 2003) blockade of the Grange Gorman bin truck depot was a success with no truck managing to leave during the three-hour blockade. These were the trucks that were to do the rubbish pick-up in the shopping areas of the city centre.
There were blockades on two of the four Dublin city depots this morning (Oct 8 2003) and a lobby of the Rathmines depot. This is to mark the High Court case this morning when 24 protesters from the city are being dragged into the courts for breaking the councils injunction against blockading trucks.
Yesterday (Oct 8 2003) the High court jailed 10 bin tax protesters. Last night at very short notice over 300 people protested outside Mountjoy jail where some of them were being held.
Saturday (Oct 11 2003) saw the second major march on Mountjoy jail of the bin tax protests. As many as 3,000 took part in this one, most marching out from Parnell square with a couple of hundred marching down from Cabra to meet them at the jail.