Around lunchtime on April 15th we received word that there was an anti-eviction protest underway on Manor street in Dublin outside a house that had been squatted.  A Garda had called at the door that morning and after being refused entrance had said he'd be back later with more Garda. The building had been squatted on and off a couple of times in recent years and was recently re-occupied.

In the midst of a media storm over the flag protests our local politicians have one again nailed their colours to the flag that does not distinguish between green and orange- that of capital and greedy profiteering. The proposal by Stormont minister Nelson McCausland to scrap the Housing Executive originally set up to provide fair allocation of public housing is another pillar in the ongoing savage attacks on our class.

The Fine Gael Ard Fheis took place over the course of last weekend (31st March). While hundreds of politicians reinforced an austerity-laden approach to politics in Dublin’s Convention Centre, about 10,000 Anti-Household-Charge protesters took over the docklands in an electrifying show of strength.  This was the final day of the governement trying to force people to register for the tax and by midnight it was clear that the campaigns goal of getting 50% to refuse to register had been met.

Over the past two months the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes has grown from strength to strength. Since the start of government registration in January, campaign meetings across the country have been packed out. 500 attended a meeting in Cork city, only to be surpassed by a meeting of 700 in Waterford city a week later. Likewise, across Dublin dozens of meetings have been held in parish halls and community centres, all with the clear message of “Don’t Register, Don’t Pay”. Building on this support, the campaign has now distributed nearly 750,000 leaflets explaining the tax and why we must refuse to pay it.

Thousands of people will be forced into poverty and homelessness as Stormont imposes the latest cut backs. Government changes mean young people aged between 24 and 35, who live alone and receive housing benefit face cuts of up to £40 a week, resulting in homelessness or forced into shared housing. These housing cuts are compounded by the lack of social and affordable housing while slum landlords and property developers continue to be subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of millions every year. 

Cork city and county Anti-Household Tax Campaign rounded off an excellent eight days' work by holding protests in Ballincollig and outside Cork's City Hall this Friday to coincide with taoiseach Enda Kenny's visit to the south. Following on from the massively successful public meeting in the city last Thursday 26^th January, 200 people spent well over 2 hours noisily picketing a Chamber of Commerce banquet at City Hall yesterday evening to let Mr. Kenny know the depth of opposition to the Household Tax in the city. Earlier in the day, another 50 people picketed the Oriel House hotel in the commuter belt town of Ballincollig, where he attended another gathering of business people.

The regressive household tax is yet a further embodiment of the government’s will to make us pay for a crisis we did not create.

Globally, 2011 was marked by a surge in grassroots resistance movements that highlighted the inherently disparate nature of global capitalism, from Tahrir Square to the #Occupy movements that mushroomed their way across the globe.

At home however, the sad highlights of 2011 were job losses, another cruel budget that savages the living standards of honest workers, and a rate of emigration that is comparable only to that of several decades back.