Winter of industrial contempt looms large

THE plutocratic bankers and speculators whose greed plunged the nation into economic despair slept soundly in their beds at just after 5am as agents of the State moved to evict discarded workers for the profit of an absentee landlord – the great lockout of 1913? No, the shaming lock-in of 2009.

The gardaí were, of course, just obeying orders, the orders of Justice Michael Peart, who demanded the Thomas Cook employees occupying their former place of work be arrested and brought before him for refusing to heed his earlier ruling for them to vacate the premises.

But the events of yesterday run much deeper than this one incident and are likely to reverberate down the coming months of unremitting mass unemployment and Bord Snip slaughtering of the sacred cows as we head to yet another emergency budget even more austere than the last.