07.12.2010

Boom lift used in Dublin protest

An angry builder used an articulated boom lift to protest outside Leinster House the seat of the Dáil the Irish parliament in Dublin today as the latest austerity budget was announced.
Please register to see all images

The machine outside Leinster House

Please register to see all images

Some of the posters on the boarding around the base of the machine

The builder Joe McNamara, 41, was demonstrating against the Irish banks role in the country’s economic melt-down. He set the machine, a Haulotte HA model, up early this morning with the base of the machine boarded up with posters and to stop the police from using the lower controls to bring him down.
Please register to see all images

builder Joe McNamara playing music from his high demo point

The Gardaí pulled down the posters and eventually persuaded him to come down, they then arrested him and drove him off. The high court later ordered his release after it was successfully argued that he had been unlawfully detained as he was conducting a lawful civil protest.
Please register to see all images

The police removed the anti government posters

The District Court then detained him for breaching bail conditions, from an earlier protest, in which he drove a concrete mixer up to the gates of the Dáil.

The bail conditions stipulate that he should not come to the unlawful attention of gardaí during his release.

However his lawyers maintained that McNamara had not intended to come to the unlawful attention of gardaí, but that on “this blackest of days” for Irish society, he felt the need to make some form of legitimate and legal civil protest outside government buildings.