Up to 2,000 in waste campaigners protest
Up to 2,000 protesters gathered outside Mountjoy Prison tonight to voice their anger at the jailing of two Socialist Party representatives.
Campaigners marched with placards from the capital’s Parnell Square to the prison, where TD Joe Higgins and councillor Clare Daly have been held since Friday.
Both were prominent in a campaign against waste charges imposed by Dublin’s Fingal County Council.
They were jailed for a month for contempt of court by a High Court judge in Dublin for refusing to say they would not join further protests against refuse collection.
Higgins, a member of the Dáil for six years, rejected a court demand to halt the action that prevented a number of lorries making waste collections last week.
Deputy Higgins’ mother was among those demonstrating at the imprisonment of the pair, and said she believed the sentence was too harsh.
The Socialist Party said the jail terms represented an attempt by the capitalist establishment to intimidate the anti-bin tax movement.
“It is an attempt to damage the Socialist Party, which has played a leading role in this movement,” a spokesman said.
A Garda spokesman said that between 1,500 and 2,000 people gathered outside the prison for the protest, which was peaceful and passed off with no arrests.
Earlier tonight another TD who visited Mr Higgins in prison said the prisoner did not regret his action.
Labour’s Joe Costello said that Joe Higgins was “in very good form” and was drawing up a schedule for his jail term.
Mr Costello said: “He feels that he has acted in a principled fashion and he had indicated all along that he was opposing the bin charges.
“He feels that he has no choice but to continue and to do his time in prison.”
He said Higgins believed the sentence was far too harsh.
“He obviously has no criminal record and he had felt that it was inappropriate, that a sentence of that harshness would have been imposed in the first instance,” he said.
The other prisoners had been very helpful and understanding, and Mr Higgins believed he was getting on well with them.
He also told Mr Costello that he hoped to lose a stone in weight by exercising during the jail term.
Clare Daly, who is being held in the women’s section of Mountjoy, was also “in great form“.
Mr Costello said, however, that she was worried about the impact of the imprisonment on her three-year-old child.
“She obviously wasn’t expecting that she would be in for that period of time,” he added.
The Labour leader said that although he did not agree with the form of protest - whereby campaigners physically blocked bin lorries – he was against the waste charge and supported the pair.
