SATURDAY SAW PERFECT conditions for a protest. Economically, of course, but perhaps just as importantly, weather-wise. 

In the lead-up to this afternoon’s demonstration, organisers of the Cost of Living Coalition made no secret of their hope that Dublin would see a march of people not seen since the Right2Water marches of 2015. 

The parallels are obvious. Electricity and the means to heat our homes and cook our meals represents the same basic, infrastructural concern as the right to water. What is perhaps less obvious is whether the country is currently possessed of the same anger that drove the eventual collapse of the water charges proposal.

Much in the same way that water charges provided a rallying point for the wide-ranging collection of groups and individuals who had taken as much austerity as they could bear after the arrival of the Troika in 2010, it seems that the rising cost of living could serve as grain of sand around which a new social movement could harden and pearl.  

At the outset of the march, a voice over a PA system warned marchers that they might not agree with everything they would hear today, seemingly an allusion to the coalition – more a kaleidoscope than a rainbow – of groups that had come together for today’s action. 

Each clan marched from Parnell Square to Leinster House under their own banner – UNITE The Union, ICTU, Sinn Féin, Extinction Rebellion, People Before Profit, Social Democrats, Community Action Tenants’ Union. Also present were enormous local contingents from the likes of Donegal, fighting for an improved redress scheme over the Mica scandal, and Carlow, whose council workers are campaigning to keep water services in public ownership. 

One woman, demonstrating on her own, completed the hour-long march with a charcoal briquette in one hand, several candles in the other, and a hot water bottle tied around her waist. Another man had written his slogan on an A4 envelope stuck to a thin strip of plywood. In conversation, one older marcher claimed that the most recent increases in cost of living had hit him harder than the recession ever had.

Time-lapse video captures significant turnout for Cost of Living Coalition march along O’Connell St in Dublin. pic.twitter.com/EUZr6ktkgv

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) September 24, 2022

Despite the current pressure facing households to meet the rising cost of living, the mood of the march was suitably sunny. A boombox pumped protest music by Dundalk rappers TPM while the congregation cleared O’Connell St. The many thousands who had gathered at no point seemed short of energy.

What the government have to reckon with ahead of this week’s budget is that those who have organised and taken part in this march do not see it as the crescendo of a movement; but as the opening salvo of a new fight. 

Speaking to The Journal before the march kicked off, People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said the march would serve as a “springboard” for further demonstrations. 

Murphy, who was a prominent figure during the water charges protests, said that “regional protests in every major town and city across the country” are already being planned for 12 November. Local demonstrations like these were likewise a feature of the water charges movement, when suburban protests were held against the installation of water metres near people’s homes.

Before the crowd gathered at the Dáil, Richard Boyd Barrett warned: “If the government choose not to cap energy prices, protect people’s right to a warm home, ensure people’s incomes, or address the scandal of homelessness, we will be back on the streets again very soon in even bigger numbers.”

12-year-old activist Sophia Mulvany asked the crowd if, at the age of 12, they understood what it meant to live through a housing crisis, or a climate crisis, noting that some of her schoolmates have been “forced to live in hostels or homelessness hubs”, channeling climate activist Greta Thunberg when she asked: “How dare you not protect our future?”

Mulvany’s presence on the big stage – a stage she shared with Fr. Peter McVerry, Niamh McDonald of SPARK, Seamus Dooley of ICTU, and political heavy-hitters such as Boyd Barrett and Mary Lou McDonald – suggests that the movement to tackle cost-of-living increases has long-since transcended party politics.

None of the organisers truly believe that today’s march will do anything to affect the contents of of the chunky little dossier we’ll see Paschal Donohoe posing with on Tuesday morning. 

What they will believe, on the back of today’s evidence, is that there is considerable public support for their message – support that could easily continue to tick upwards in tandem with cost-of-living.