Centenary party mood spoilt as demonstration turns ugly

Have a nice day was the Tánaiste’s advice to the hundreds of protesters.

But it was a day the Labour Party will want to forget.

The party was forced to bus delegates off college grounds in Galway on Saturday evening after protesters broke through Garda crash barriers and crowded around the conference centre.

At least 1,000 protesters marched on the NUI Galway in the afternoon sunshine but scenes quickly turned ugly when crowds forced their way through the Garda blockade.

Earlier, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore responded to a media query on the expected protesters by saying: “Have a nice day”.

Protesters broke through security lines to picket the Bailey Allen building at NUI Galway, where the conference was held.

The crowd used a coffin draped in the Irish flag as a battering ram, chanting: “They say cut back, we say fight back.”

One garda turned her pepper spray on a small number of protesters. An RTÉ cameraman was later taken to hospital while protesters were left with stinging red eyes.

They remained chanting and shouting for a few hours while Labour delegates went through motions and voted on policies, safely indoors behind a wall of gardaí guarding the entrance.

The party’s afternoon sessions were disrupted temporarily and delegates were ordered to stay inside for security reasons.

Many protesters said they had come to voice their anger over the household charge, while others were angry at Labour’s cutbacks in government.

Protesters at one stage burned a party programme outside the hall while chanting “revolution” while others pulled down barriers with party logos. Children and pensioners mingled among the crowd as they chanted: “No way, we won’t pay”.

Mr Gilmore had told party members last year that the party could expect a “forest of placards” to come while in government. And so they did.

Unemployed bus driver Michael Moylan watched with his wife Tina and daughter Mary as scuffles broke out around the garda barricades and pepper spray was used on the crowds. Afterwards, the Connemara man said: “We didn’t think it was fair, it seems to be mostly girls that were Mace sprayed.”

Richard Boyd Barrett, a TD leading the campaign against the household charge, denied the protest was violent. “There’s people with prams and pensioners they don’t look like a mob.”