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Galway People Confront City Council
 galway |
miscellaneous |
feature
 Tuesday September 09, 2003 15:53 by Vinnie
A large crowd gathered outside City Hall in Galway on Monday the 8th , on what may be the last chance to do so legally if the city's reactionary and draconian council get their way. People and groups from all walks of Galway life were there, buskers, skateboarders, kite flyers, shopkeepers, sports enthuasiasts, unions, voluntary and political groups. All were united in protest and condemnation at the introduction of the borderline facist byelaws, which are set to strangle through over-regulation nearly all public activity of almost any sort, and destroy the vibe and spirit that Galway is famous for.
Recent Articles About The Byelaws:
Galway To Crack Down On Civil Rights |
Protest Galway Corporations Draconian Bye-Laws |
Litter And Parks Bye-Laws A Shocking Attack On Civil Liberties
Results of the council's decision at their meeting are not yet known but the people of Galway have made their voices heard and the predominantly right wing councillors will hopefully bear this in mind when they cast their votes, or they will do so at their own electoral peril.
If not, the people of Galway will most likely go out and break these laws anyway, until they are proved untenable, unlawful and undemocratic.
It is worth pointing out that these laws did not just come from the wind, and contrary to the council's deceptive spin have very little to do with litter prevention. If the council was really concerned about litter, they would actually install a decent number of litter bins in the city centre for example.
No, it is the opinion of many, and myself included, that these laws are part of a government initiated plan to react against the rise of real grassroots politics and activism among people, which so scared them last year with the whole Shannon/war debacle. In light of this, they want to prepare for the next year's EU presidency, of which one of the first summits is to be held in Galway. They are trying to do this by passing byelaws through the backdoor of councils around the country rather than engaging in the national debate that would ensue if they tried it at a national level.
While they may well realize that these laws are untenable, they will inevitably use them as another stick in their armoury to harass activists and organisers and frighten the new and inexperienced protestors off the streets with threats of arrest.
We cannot and will not let them win!
The late great galway street performer
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Comments (18 of 18)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18Get to know them, they want to hear what you have to say, they want emails from you (lots of them!) they want phone calls. In fact this handy link provides pictures so that you can talk to them in the street and the supermarket if you bump into them -- after all the reason they get to be temporary dictators is so that they can distil your input into action!
The corporation have sent the laws back to some committee or other to look at again. This means that they have not been voted in and will probably be revised in some way.
They are still to make a decision on the bye-law which will affect the right to leafletting. As far as I know this will be discussed in October's meeting.
I think it is important to keep the pressure on as public protest can influence the corporation's actions. I doubt they would have taken the action they did tonight without the level of protest and publicity surrounding the laws. I think letters to the councillors, along with letters to the papers, and in a few weeks mobilising again on the leafletting issue will help prevent these laws coming in.
Perhaps as well, people should organise themselves into groups of 101 to show how daft and dangerous the whole idea is.
>Talk to your councillors: even if they won't let
>you talk in public
>Get to know them, they want to hear what you
>have to say, they want emails from you (lots of
>them!) they want phone calls.
You try it because I'm fed up, I've sent very polite emails to most of the councillors, and the only ones who give a real response are the left wing ones who I know are on side anyway. The FF,PD,FG simply seem to ignore the public or send patronising form letters in response.
>after all the reason they get to be temporary
>dictators is so that they can distil your input
>into action!
Supposedly this is true, but most councillors get by on the fact that most people don't even think about the council being an important institution and are totally unaware of their activities. This leaves them free most of the time to go ahead and implement policies from government and party mandates (rather than local opinion) as well as to the advantage of their local business buddies.
They then secure their positions not by implementing really beneficial policies but by "expediting" johnnys planning permission up the road, and making sure mary's daughter gets that grant, and getting the corpo to prioritize fixing so and so's drains.
Its all gombeenism of the highest order to placate the electorate while getting on with their advancement with little concern for the community except when its good for the image.
This issue has now been refered back to the Community, Social and Cultural Development Strategic Policy Committee (SPC)
This committee contains community representatives as well as councillors.
The list of committe members is as follows.
Committee Members – Cllr. John Mulholland (Chairperson), Cllr. Micheal O hUiginn, Cllr. Donal Lyons, Cllr. Terry O’Flaherty, Cllr. Angela Lupton, Cllr. Val Hanley, Cllr. Tom Costello, Mr. Mick Crehan, Ms. M O’Shaughnessy, Ms. A. Connolly, Mr. S. MacSiurdain, Ms Margaret O’Riada.
The leafleting issue was dealt with by the Environment SPC of which I am a community representative. Myself and Cllr. Catherine Connolly raised objections to it but were overruled. The committee members are as follows.
Committee Members – Ald. Michael Leahy (Chairperson), Ald. Catherine Connolly, Ald Margaret Cox, Cllr. Fintan Coogan, Cllr. Declan McDonnell, Cllr. Paul Colleran, Mr. Niall O’Brolchain, Ms. Mary O’Leary, Mr. Tony Freaney.
Contact details for the community representatives can be obtained by contacting the Dept. of Community & Enterprise in City Hall.
It is well worth lobbying these people, including the councillors. Sometimes it can make all the difference.
>The leafleting issue was dealt with by the Environment SPC of which I am a community representative. Myself and Cllr.
>Catherine Connolly raised objections to it but were overruled.
Who over-ruled you? I presume it was one of those in the list of the SPC committee that you provided?
In the list of councillors provided, I noted from www.galwaycity.ie what political parties they belonged to.
Ald. Michael Leahy (Chairperson) -FF
ALd. Catherine Connolly -LAB
Ald. Margaret Cox -FF
Cllr. Fintan Coogan -FG
Cllr Declan McDonnell -PD
Cllr. Paul Colleran -PD
And who are these 3 characters??. They don't seem to be councillors. Are they ordinary citizens. Who are they???
Mr. Niall O’Brolchain
Ms. Mary O’Leary
Mr. Tony Freaney.
And how is the power organised in this committee. Can the Chairperson just overrule everyone else. I notice it is a FFer who has that plumb seat!
Better still who proposed this thing in the first place?
Just realized it is the same Niall Ó Brolcháin of the Green Party in the list of 3 unknowns in last posting. Funny the way Galway Corpo website only lists people from FF, PD, FG and PDs. Do they try to hide the fact that others are in the council too?
Myself and Catherine Connolly of the Labour party were overruled by a vote of all the other members of the SPC. I believe that they were all present at that particular meeting but I may stand corrected. Margaret Cox was the only other member of the committee to express reservations but she didn't oppose it going forward.
For the record I was elected on as a community REP rather than a Green Party REP.
Mary O Leary who now works for the City Council was also elected on as a community REP.
Tony Freaney is a Business REP.
...be inventive, y'know, 100s of e mails, picket their houses, these little shits have these bizarre right wing ideas, but cold reality should make them up, just like tosspot Noel Dempsey's fee plan. These shits must not want to get elected. If I saw a traveller assault one of the councillors, I would just stand there and laugh. The cops would ask me why I did not call them. I would say I had no mobile, and was unable to get to a phone because I had fallen to the ground with laughter, and was unable to get up.
Really, though, the councillors should remember that they are in the public eye, and should realise they are in the long run, restricting their own freedom by experimenting with bypassing the constitution. There are a lot of psychos out there, and 21st century Ireland is not the place to be arsing about with peoples rights, or, worse, tempers. The crimes of the fifties (church encroachment in state, affairs, instituional abuse, imprisonment in church run workhouses for single mothers) have led to a potential pandoras box being exploded.This will be the straw that broke the camel's back.
Those scummy fuckwits from the council need fecking voodoo dolls made of them, the scummy little fascists. And if they are reading this and gufawwing, then they have declared war on the people of Galway...
May theiy be riddled with cancer, woe and misfortune for their blasphemy in even proposing such sick lunacy.
The Greens are a laugh they have some nerve coming on the Demo when they actually support Bin Charges. Same as having Labour there, they can talk with the Greens about how they are going into coaltion with Fine Gael.
Keep Green and Pink capitalists off these Demos!
i read this kind of comment and i don't know whether to laugh or cry. Seriously man, attacking people like this just leads to a flame war (i can just see the usual suspects foaming at the mouth now), makes a lot more work for the poor oul editors and after pat c, magneto etc etc go to work will leave members of the sp denouncing indymedia for being 'all agin them'...
don't you know how this site works by now???
Some pics from the demo.....i put a story up later..
yet more pics of the demo.
last picture!
I suspect sp activist is a troll, someone trying to start a fight. Please ignore him.
If he is real let him use his real name I will know him. If he doesn't please disregard everything he says.
The SP commends everything everyone is doing against these ridiculas bye laws including members of the green and labour parties who are obviously doing excellent work. Bin charges is a different issue where we disagree but in this we definitely have no disagreements. Fair play to yes and keep it up!
Good point.Unity is important in an issue like this.Its worth pointing out that some litter warden have already tried to abusr their powers under the litter act.
AFA and SP members were leafletting outside the GPO a couple of years ago when a particularly obnoxious warden (with the aid of a garda) got our names & addresses. We were issued with fines.
However, Joe Costelloe LP and Ciaran Cuffe Greens raised the matter at City Council level and got the fines quashed.
I would just like to point out that if it had not been for Green & Labour activists highlighting the issues in the first place, these bye-laws would have passed without anyone noticing. Perhaps this is what you want?
At least we have the courage to stand up and be counted on these issues.
Are you by any chance a member of the PDs in disguise?
I think the Green Party have done good work on this particular issue by raising it in the first place.
But I need to comment on:
>if it had not been for Green & Labour activists >highlighting the issues in the first place,
>these bye-laws would have passed without anyone >noticing.
I think you hit the nail on the head there in pointing out how un-democratic the system is, because if people fall asleep with regard to what the State is up to for even a short period of time, it just shows how they will rush through all sorts of legislation and then claim it was done in a democractic way.
What we have is a system that is the opposite to fail-safe. Unlike say a moving train, if the driver does not press a certain lever every few minutes, the train will stop. In the current political structure in this country (ala the councils and Dail), if the 'driver falls asleep' we get all this kind of repressive legisalation and can rapidly move down the hill towards a police state, indeed very similar as to what is happening with the Patriot Act in the USA, and back here in Ireland, with the arrests of people who were protesting against the War.