‘Stop burying waste or waste will bury us’

ROADS blockaded. Men, women and children on the march. Dáil deputies thrown in jail. Refuseniks manning the barricades and government departments under siege.

It has all the ingredients of a classic revolution except the issue isn't about universal suffrage or discrimination. It is all to do with refuse collection charges the bin tax.

Not since the PAYE tax protests of 1979 and the mid-1980s has an issue so animated such a large section of the Irish population. Refuse charges, like any other tax, were never expected to be popular but the tirade unleashed since their introduction has been all but unstoppable.