PR: Is Article 40.6 of the Constitution to be abolished?
30.03.2001
Youth Defence notes with extreme concern the publication of provisional bye-law plans by Dublin Corporation as they relate public demonstrations on O'Connell Street. It is indeed ironic that this street, named as it is in honour of Daniel O'Connell, famed for his "monster meetings"; in support of Catholic emancipation, should be the focus of Dublin Corporations effective banning of all public demonstrations of any significant size.
The measures proposed by the Corporation are draconian in the extreme, and can only be designed to prevent those organisations, which have difficulty in accessing the media through ordinary channels, from having access to the general public directly. It will be understood immediately that the measures will have no effect whatsoever on the current political establishment which controls both a majority in Dail Eireann and the Corporation, since easy access to the media on whatever issue they wish to highlight is always available to them.
The motivation therefore can only be to quieten public discontent in line with previous legislation, such as the Public Order Act. Youth Defence have long been the subject of intimidatory tactics, politically motivated, under this Act, including strip-searching of members both female and male on two occasions, and we believe that the proposed bye-laws are a similar infringement of civil rights.
The extreme nature of the proposals, the definition of a "group of persons" requiring permission for a gathering at six or more persons would technically outlaw many gatherings of persons with no political purpose whatever. To describe the meeting of "ten or more persons" as an event is absurd. Moreover asking almost any organisation to provide indemnity insurance of £3m or more, including other provisions, is prohibitive to the point of making public protest impossible.
Youth Defence therefore call on all organisations concerned with civil liberties to strongly resist these proposals. We believe that they may be characterised, without exaggeration, as a direct attack on democracy.
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