Up to 100,000 protest Irish austerity plan

Dublin city centre was brought to a standstill on Saturday as up to 100,000 workers staged a protest march against the government's credit crunch austerity measures, police said.The demonstration, organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) and featuring teachers, police, civil servants and others, is the "first step in a rolling campaign of action," ICTU general secretary David Begg said.Marchers are particularly opposed to a pension levy on some 350,000 public servants which is designed to save about 1.4 billion euros (1.8 billion dollars) this year.Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is bringing in an initial two billion euro package of cuts designed to stabilise the one-time Celtic Tiger economy, which entered recession in the first half of 2008.Cowen has said the economy will shrink by up to 10 percent by 2010 and warned of total savings of 15 billion euros needed over five years in a bid to stabilise Irish finances.In a statement to coincide with the demonstration, the government said it recognised that the measures it was taking "are difficult and, in some cases, painful" but they were also "necessary and fair."They are necessary because it is essential that we show a credible start on the correction of an emerging unsustainability in our public finances," it said."Failure to show that credible start means that we impact directly and severely on our international reputation among investors and, in particular, on our capacity to raise funds, and on the direct cost of servicing the borrowing which we are able to undertake."The ICTU describes the government's measures as "lacking in fairness and focussing only on 'stabilising' the public finances at the expense of economic renewal and job protection."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ef1358d7955320b89b550b84243b901f.ab1&show_article=1&catnum=0

As in the days of Noah...