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Civic Offices - College Green national |
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news report
 Tuesday May 07, 2002 22:47 by Oisin Mac Giollamoir
 Civic Offices is not in the Direction Of College Green, so why did we end up there? I guess I'm breaking the rules here because this isn't really news, but still I think it's important that this is cleared up. When we left Burgh Quay i was told that we were going to the Civic Offices and on this Web-Site people have said that we were supposed to be going there aswell. But at Parliament St. things got confused and we ended up going down to College Green where the Gardaí were waiting for us. I know this sounds like something of a conspiracy and I don't mean it to but can someone tell me What Happened? Why did we turn and head down in the opposite direction to where we were supposed to be going? And just to answer what provoked the attacks: At College Green a number of us sat down in front of a Police Van. Then a garda confronted us and tried to tear up the reclaim the Streets Banner, All this could be seen on RTE. The gardai then tried to get people off the streets by dragging them away, then they pulled out the batons and all hell broke loose. Or at least this is how I saw it. Feel free to correct me. Finally in Reply to "Reader"; a number of people that were at the RTS do work within our existing democracy, a number of people that were there are active with the Labour Party (myself included), the SWP, and I suspect there were some people there from the Socialist Party and maybe some Greens. Personally I think this is irrelevant. Some people don't electioneer and I don't see how that that invalidates their political concerns. Ois. |
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Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 2 1I was relatively near the front of the march by the time we reached Wood Quay but 2 garda riot vans and a line of about 10 gardai had blocked the way so we decided we should just head onto Stephen's Green. If you were further back you wouldn't have seen the garda blockade because as soon as the first 50 people or so had changed the root they went running into the vans and the rest of the marchers followed the front.
As far as I could tell there had been suggestions to head towards Stephens Green. However as the party headed down the quays and away from Stephens Green the consensus generally shifted towards heading for the civic offices. I was up the front for most of the party so I have a fairly good sense of this. I certainly know that most people also had no clear idea of where we were going at all.
All went till plan till Parliament Street when the Gardaí blocked off various roots. So rather than risk confrontation the party avioded the gards and turned around into Dame Street. The Gards weren't waiting for us in Dame Street - they were following us but did make a point of getting ahead of the demo.
It was the gardaí who brought the march to a halt - up until it had only been causing the kind of disruption to traffic that any march usually would except that this was a bank holiday Monday so traffic was particularly light.
Anyway they just lost the head and started laying into people.
On another note - I have to say if ever there was a reason to vote - I think it would be to vote for one of the parties that wants an independent garda complaints procedure - rather than the current pratice of gardaí investigating gardaí. Its a bit like Fianna Fail investigating themselves for corruption.
All the same I definitely urge people to make complaints - the more complaints the more pressure for action to be taken. If we don't lodge complaints then we can't even accuse the gardai of ignoring our complaints.