Updated at 4.35pm
CAMPAIGNERS CONNECTED TO the ‘Dublin Says No’ protest group have been staging demonstrations outside the home of a Labour TD since the weekend.
A small group of activists have been maintaining a presence outside the Raheny home of Dublin North East TD Sean Kenny for the last five evenings.
Sporadic protests against the installation of meters have been ongoing in the area in recent months. Some of the campaigners involved hit the headlines earlier this month when they picketed the Taoiseach’s visit to a local elderly-care centre, and one man was arrested.
Images posted online by the group in recent days show protesters outside Kenny’s semi-detached home holding placards saying ‘fight the water tax’ and accusing the backbencher of being a ‘sell-out’ and a ‘traitor’.
The photos also show demonstrators entering his garden and knocking on his front door.
Derek Byrne, from Donaghmede — one of the main organisers of Dublin Says No — defended his group’s tactics of taking their protest to the private home of a politician.
“This is a peaceful stand and he has the option to come out and talk to us but he’s chosen not to do that,” Byrne said.
Nothing in this life is fair, we’d rather not have to stand here but we have no option. Sean Kenny was elected on the pretence that he’d fight for us but he hasn’t.
Byrne said the demonstrations started at around 7.30pm each evening, and that at one stage this week there were around forty people taking part.
He said those taking part were constituents of Dublin North East, and that they all lived nearby.
Contacted by TheJournal.ie, Kenny said he believed “every citizen regardless of who they are is entitled to the privacy of their own home”.
He said he hadn’t had any personal contact with the protesters in recent days, adding that he had been in the Dáil since Tuesday.
“People are entitled to free speech,” Kenny said — but he reiterated several times that, like any other citizen, he was entitled to privacy.
He said said constituents were always welcome to contact him at his public advice centres, or via phone.
Kenny, who was first elected to the Dáil in 1992, is the only remaining Government TD in the Dublin North East constituency.
His former Labour colleague Tommy Broughan lost the party whip in 2011, while Terence Flanagan, formerly a Fine Gael TD, lost the endorsement of his party last summer.
Additional reporting, Cliodhna Russell. First posted at 3.48pm.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say