Public Meeting: Greek activist and socialist speaks

The big winners at the next General Election are likely to be the Labour Party,  benefitting from the anger of voters at Fianna Fail and the desire for change.

This past summer, Ireland’s Crisis Pregnancy Programme announced in its annual report that the number of Irish women travelling abroad for abortions is falling. In 2010 some 4,422 women gave Irish addresses at UK abortion clinics compared to 6,673 in 2001.

The depiction of a deranged dystopian realm is not an un familiar one to cinema goers. Last year there was the chilling Never Let Me Go with Kiera Knightly and Carey Mulligan, and the re-discovery of V for Vendetta (2006) by the “Indignados” and “Occupy” protesters. The Hunger Games, a film adaption of the first novel of a bestselling teenage trilogy by Suzanne Collins, in that sense is not groundbreaking or exceptional. However, with the captivating appeal of its feisty heroine, Katniss Everdeen, played with subtlety and intelligence by Jennifer Lawrence, and its portrayal of themes such as extreme inequality, lack of democracy, dictatorship, the depravity of the tabloid media and reality television that echo many of the themes of the ‘Occupy’ movement, mean that ‘Hunger Games’  packs quite a punch.

In the immediate period after the passing of the Property Tax registration deadline in May, and what for most areas could be months or even over a year before the installation of water meters takes place, there is a challenge facing all local campaigns which fought household and property taxes as to how to maintain themselves for the future battles.