The Occupy Dame Street movement said the recently announced Budget will not tackle income inequality and pledged to remain camped at the Central Bank.
Months after the Occupy Dame Street movement set up in front of the Central Bank, the area has gone from a tent town to a fenced-off enclosure complete with sleeping arrangements - still including tents – and a kitchen. Members are split into teams that handle different tasks. Some come down only for the days, while others have slept outside for weeks.
Liam Mac an Bháird, who has been living at the camp for five weeks, said the occupiers are getting their quarters set up for winter as they are in for the long haul.
“Here at the Central Bank there is no issue of us being kicked out anytime soon,” said Mr Mac an Bháird. “Security at the bank has said they have no issue with us.”
There is more to Occupy than just camping out in the cold, occupier Rosa O Laoghaire said, adding all political parties have failed. Occupy, she says, is a way of getting around divisions of left and right.
The protesters say they reject “the complete control of the European Central Bank” in economic policy, demand the IMF “stay out of our affairs,” and that bailout debts be lifted from citizens. They also want oil and gas reserves be taken from corporations and returned to the State.
“We have a dictatorship of money,” Mr Mac an Bháird said. “Money is where the real power lies. That government down there is impotent.”
Many at the camp, both those who protested against the Budget and those who did not, said they found it appalling.
One protester, Clare Leonard, said that to even suggest taking away money from young people with disabilities was damaging to the Government’s reputation and showed that it did not have the best interests of the people in mind. Others, like Ms O Laoghaire said that historically austerity was a failed policy which would create job insecurity.
“We don’t really know what our overall goal is, it’s constantly evolving,” said Mr Mac an Bháird. He said a "solutions group" was formlating a goal for the movement.
He pledged the camp outside the Central Bank would continue. “All the men that have sacrificed themselves and the women who have slept out in fields and in barns during the war of independence and the civil war can’t be forgotten,” Mr Mac an Bháird said.
“So our struggle is in some ways a hard one, but it’s nothing in comparison to the brave people that have fought before for freedom and for justice.”