SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Sea of Irish Protesters: 'Water Is a Human Right!'
Massive demonstration admonishes new water tax as further austerity
Oct 13, 2014
As many as 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday to denounce a new water tax and declare, "Water is a human right."
Protesters say the water charges, to begin next year, are yet more austerity measures that have pushed people towards a "tipping point."
Fifty-year-old Martin Kelly held a sign reading "Stop the great water heist" and told Reuters, "There is absolute fury against what the government has imposed on the people."
"This day will go down in history as the day that the people decided to roar," said Independent TD Clare Daly. "We are here in our tens of thousands to say water is a human right, based on need, not an ability to pay."
Other protesters chanted, ""From the rivers to the sea, Irish water will be free."
Independent councillor Declan Bree said that people have already been paying EUR1.2 billion for water through their taxes, and said the new plan is a step towards privatizing the country's water.
Bree is among those saying that people should refuse to pay the new charges.
"We have to have mass non-compliance when these bills start coming in January," Audrey Clancy of the Edenmore Says No campaign told the crowd.
"No contract, no consent. We can beat this. We have to stick together. The power of the people is greater than the people in power. Stand up to them," she said.
A statement from the People Before Profit Alliance reads: "We can stop these charges if we come together and resist. In the 1990s, the government tried to impose water charges on domestic users. They were met with mass protests and were forced to retreat. People power defeated the water charges then. We can do the same today."
The Right2Water campaign has an online petition to urge the government to abandon the water tax, noting: "Access to water is recognized as a human right by the United Nations. The Irish Constitution supports the distribution of vital community resources, like water, on the needs of the common good."
Organizers have another demonstration scheduled for November 1.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
As many as 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday to denounce a new water tax and declare, "Water is a human right."
Protesters say the water charges, to begin next year, are yet more austerity measures that have pushed people towards a "tipping point."
Fifty-year-old Martin Kelly held a sign reading "Stop the great water heist" and told Reuters, "There is absolute fury against what the government has imposed on the people."
"This day will go down in history as the day that the people decided to roar," said Independent TD Clare Daly. "We are here in our tens of thousands to say water is a human right, based on need, not an ability to pay."
Other protesters chanted, ""From the rivers to the sea, Irish water will be free."
Independent councillor Declan Bree said that people have already been paying EUR1.2 billion for water through their taxes, and said the new plan is a step towards privatizing the country's water.
Bree is among those saying that people should refuse to pay the new charges.
"We have to have mass non-compliance when these bills start coming in January," Audrey Clancy of the Edenmore Says No campaign told the crowd.
"No contract, no consent. We can beat this. We have to stick together. The power of the people is greater than the people in power. Stand up to them," she said.
A statement from the People Before Profit Alliance reads: "We can stop these charges if we come together and resist. In the 1990s, the government tried to impose water charges on domestic users. They were met with mass protests and were forced to retreat. People power defeated the water charges then. We can do the same today."
The Right2Water campaign has an online petition to urge the government to abandon the water tax, noting: "Access to water is recognized as a human right by the United Nations. The Irish Constitution supports the distribution of vital community resources, like water, on the needs of the common good."
Organizers have another demonstration scheduled for November 1.
As many as 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday to denounce a new water tax and declare, "Water is a human right."
Protesters say the water charges, to begin next year, are yet more austerity measures that have pushed people towards a "tipping point."
Fifty-year-old Martin Kelly held a sign reading "Stop the great water heist" and told Reuters, "There is absolute fury against what the government has imposed on the people."
"This day will go down in history as the day that the people decided to roar," said Independent TD Clare Daly. "We are here in our tens of thousands to say water is a human right, based on need, not an ability to pay."
Other protesters chanted, ""From the rivers to the sea, Irish water will be free."
Independent councillor Declan Bree said that people have already been paying EUR1.2 billion for water through their taxes, and said the new plan is a step towards privatizing the country's water.
Bree is among those saying that people should refuse to pay the new charges.
"We have to have mass non-compliance when these bills start coming in January," Audrey Clancy of the Edenmore Says No campaign told the crowd.
"No contract, no consent. We can beat this. We have to stick together. The power of the people is greater than the people in power. Stand up to them," she said.
A statement from the People Before Profit Alliance reads: "We can stop these charges if we come together and resist. In the 1990s, the government tried to impose water charges on domestic users. They were met with mass protests and were forced to retreat. People power defeated the water charges then. We can do the same today."
The Right2Water campaign has an online petition to urge the government to abandon the water tax, noting: "Access to water is recognized as a human right by the United Nations. The Irish Constitution supports the distribution of vital community resources, like water, on the needs of the common good."
Organizers have another demonstration scheduled for November 1.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.