'Freeze prices not people': Thousands line Cork streets in cost of living protest

Crowds on St Patrick's St, Cork, today for a protest organised by the Cork Cost of Living Campaign. Picture: Larry Cummins

Up to 3,000 people attended a cost-of-living protest in Cork City today, with many attendees warning that they face the stark choice of deciding between “heating or eating” this winter.

Friends Annette O’Mahony, 62, and Sheila Hegarty, 64, who live in Mahon and Dublin Hill, respectively, say they are terrified about the uncertainty surrounding rising heating bills this winter.

Annette says the Government is living on “another planet” in suggesting that people “put on extra clothes this winter” in order to stay warm. She says many people would dip into their savings to pay their utility bills but “nobody has savings any more". 

Sheila is on the widow’s pension. She says people like her are “really struggling". 

 “The cost of electricity, fuel food. If you run a car. I really feel anyone on a state pension is afraid. They are talking tiny increases (for us) in the budget. What will we get? Maybe €5 next year.

You can’t budget when you don’t know what is coming doing the road. People are living hand to mouth.

"A lot of elderly people who would have had money have probably given it to youngsters to try and give them a start.” 

Donna Alexander from Douglas in Cork city, who is in her mid-30s, feels she did everything the right way in life. However, she is struggling to pay her bills. 

“I am angry. I am working full time. I have done everything the right way. I have gone to college. I pay my taxes. I work hard. Now I feel I am bleeding money just to survive.

"It is everything. It is not just fuel. It is food, it is electricity. It is so unfair. I am sick and tired of seeing the Government basically protect the people who are doing this. Protect the organisations that are causing this instead of doing what they are elected to do which is to serve the public.” 

Thousands of people took part in the protest over the cost-of-living crisis. Picture: Larry Cummins

Donna says that keeping the house warm is going to be an impossible task this winter. “It is coming down to the idea of do we heat the house only x amount of days a week? Or do we try to do without unless it gets really cold.

"Do we just buy a load of candles instead of turning on the lights? It is at that point for me. Not turning on the immersion and washing in cold water in the middle of winter. I am young but there are older people where that will kill them.

"I volunteer for a food waste charity where basically I collect surplus food once a week and you put the food on the app and it is collected for free. The numbers on that have shot up. It is everyone. It is people with kids. It is older people. It is single people.” 

Gerry Miller from Patrick’s Hill in Cork City says he has been paying taxes since 1966 but all the money seems to be doing is “propping up lame-duck governments". 

“The only skill they have is to successfully hoodwink a couple of thousand people to vote for them. And when they go up (the chain) they pull the ladder up after them.“

'Old people need their heating'

Antoinette Burke, Families Unite for Services and Support,  at the protest. Picture: Larry Cummins

Edith Busteed, aged 23, from Turner’s Cross, attended the protest with her mother, Kate, who is a child care worker and says her wages are small in spite of her having a degree.

“My wages are ridiculous. I see my bills soaring. Old people need their heating. Vulnerable people need their heating. If you are in a situation of domestic violence, how are you supposed to leave," says Kate.

"It is brilliant to see people rising up. The Government throwing a lump sum at bills isn’t going to do anything.” 

 Edith, who works with ROSA, the Socialist Feminist Movement, says while prices are rising, wages are staying the same.

“The people who are hit the most are those who don’t have a lot. We need to stand up. We can’t take it anymore. There is power in the people. There are multiple problems. You have the housing crisis. People are sick of it all.” 

Sinead Roche, UCC student union, speaking at the  protest  Picture: Larry Cummins

Among the speakers at today's protest was Socialist Party TD for Cork North Central Mick Barry, who says that people are tired of the constant struggle to survive in this country.

“We refuse to go hungry or to let others go hungry. We refuse to freeze our homes this winter. We will not carry a can that is not a crisis or our making," he says.

"Do the Government think that we fail to see the mass profiteering going on around us? €2m in profit a day by the ESB. Energy credits are not going to cut it. We want and demand a freeze on price increases.” 

 Other speakers included Valerie Conlon, former Debenhams shop steward who took part in the historic picket in the city when the firm closed its Irish operations; Antoinette Burke of Families Unite for Services and Support; and Sinead Roche of University College Cork student union.