PDF image of Issue No. 1 of Convention newspaper:
The anti-bailout protesters in Ballyhea/Charleville in Cork have passed the first anniversary of their weekly march. All the time they have demanded an end to the bailout, saying that it has no mandate from the people, and that it was wrong that the public should have to pay the gambling debts of bankers and speculators.
Diarmuid O’Flynn (organiser) has been critical of media coverage of the issues involved:
Those of us who protest are asked again and again – ‘what else can we do, what will happen to us all if the ECB pulls its funding of our Central Bank?’ Wrong questions, to the wrong people – Do you ask the oppressed to accept their oppression or do you ask the oppressor to stop, do you ask the oppressor to justify legally or morally what they are doing?
O’Flynn also criticized the current Government, stating that it had been elected on the promise of rejecting the bondholder impositions but that now they had accepted it. Rather than act on the mandate of the people they were:
Like Fianna Fáil/The Greens, instead of forcing our just cause on the Troika they are forcing the cause of the Troika on us.
The Ballyhea/Charleville Says No! protest is determined to continue. Their reputation has spread far and wide.
Whatever we may think about the bondholder bailout and the accompaning IMF/ECB intervention, it has compromised our sovereign rights – citizens have every right to be concerned.
