‘I don’t think the party can say they didn’t see us’

THE driver of the sightseeing bus was conveying his collection of assorted tourists past the Mansion House — home of the first Dáil, he explained loudly so the two passengers on the open deck upstairs could hear — when suddenly he came across a sight not on his itinerary.

“And there on your right are the, um, senior citizens, who are, eh, having a, um, protest,” he ad-libbed as all heads turned to follow the hoards of elderly people streaming across the road in defiance of the red man and the motorists who grimaced at the prospects of accidentally bumping their granny.

“You should see them. They’re so cute,” cooed a high-heeled Sex and the City wannabe on her lunch break as she relayed the latest down her itsy-bitsy mobile. Cute, maybe, but in the same way a chihuahua is cute until you try to take its chewy bone off them.

Some predicted the second day of protest by pensioners against cuts to the over-70s medical card would be a damp squib. Worn out by the exertions of the previous day’s demonstrations and won over by the Government’s latest partial climb down, they were expected to turn out in just enough numbers to take the bad look off the occasion.

If bets were placed on that particular assumption, then money was lost. Estimates had the number as high as 15,000 — beating the students who would gather in the same spot later in the day.

Their anger had not abated nor their determination dwindled. Their placards said it all. 70 And Over — No Pushover; OAP Not RIP; Old And Bold; A Budget To Die For; HSE — Harney Screws Elderly.

Yeats was drawn upon, prompting posters that declared: No Country For Old Men — Or Women and inspiring the poignant plea: “Brian, we be old, have only our dreams, tread softly.”

Neither of the Brians were around to answer the plea and Máire Hoctor, Minister for Older People, came to face the music but this was an orchestra she could not conduct.

Appeals for quiet were made by rally organisers, the Senior Citizens Parliament, but the mood was not receptive. “I am very sorry that you were compelled to come here,” said the minister to a wall of booing and whistling.

“There is not one single colleague of mine who does not acknowledge your sense of anger,” she tried again, but the thousands were unconvinced. She lasted three minutes and left, her words lost in the din.

Ciarán Cuffe of the Green Party didn’t do much better. “I am here to apologise,” he roared but the crowed roared back. He lasted a minute and a half.

Among the crowd, Shay Tarpey, 71, from Finglas, Dublin, was nodding too. He worked for 49 years before retiring and was at risk of losing his medical card before the latest changes to the scheme, but a personal reprieve wasn’t enough,

“I’m here for all the others who’ll be affected in the future. If we accept this, the Government can change the income limits at any time. We have to defend the principle.”

Principle got pals Ena Bunyan, Mary Keogh, Beatrice Kelly and Kathleen Blount, up at 5am to make the journey from Kerry. “We got driven to the bus. Then we got the bus to Limerick and the train to Limerick Junction, another train to Heuston and then a taxi to here,” said Mary, who is in her 80s. “And we used our free travel to do it.

“If we let them take the medical card off some people, they’ll try to take other things off us all.”

Ena once shook de Valera’s hand when he visited her school and she agreed with ex-Fianna Fáil TD Joe Behan that the party’s founder would be turning in his grave.

She said it would be hard for people to vote against the party after a lifetime of loyalty and she hoped Fianna Fáil supporters wouldn’t have to face a crisis of conscience at the polling booth. “I would hope the party would see us right instead,” she said. “We’ve shown them how — and I don’t think they can say they didn’t see us.”