Irish anti-austerity protesters clash with police

Hundreds of hard-line protesters opposed to Ireland's ongoing austerity programme clashed with police and snarled rush-hour traffic in Dublin with a surprise seizure of a key bridge today.
The trouble on O'Connell Street, Dublin's major thoroughfare, and fighting with police outside the entrance to Ireland's parliament building reflected the rising divisions, both within the government and on the streets, over plans to continue with a five-year austerity programme.
Police pinned down or pepper-sprayed several demonstrators as they tried to push their way through steel barricades and towards the parliament entrance, where politicians were arriving for their first debating session following a two-month summer recess.

Ireland's government on October 15 is committed to unveiling a 2014 budget featuring 3.1 billion euros (USD 4 billion) in new cuts and tax hikes. The Irish already have endured five years of austerity following the collapse of their credit-driven Celtic Tiger boom in 2008.
But economists and government ministers are publicly divided over whether those 2014 cuts go too far, given Ireland's better-than-expected economic performance following its 2010 bailout by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
That so-called troika of international creditors three years ago provided Ireland loans worth 67.5 billion euros (USD 90 billion) when the colossal bill of Ireland's bank-rescue program overwhelmed the government's own ability to keep financing its debts.

The EU-IMF fund is running out by the end of the year, by which time Ireland hopes to resume affordable borrowing on bond markets.

But many Irish believe they've already lost too much income and benefits to finance a bank-rescue program expected to cost Irish taxpayers close to 70 billion pounds, or nearly 20,000 euros (USD 26,000) for every man, woman and child in Ireland.
Protesters representing a range of socialist, Irish republican and anti-establishment interests converged on Leinster House, the parliament building, bearing signs demanding the imprisonment of reckless bankers deemed responsible for fueling a destructive 15-year property bubble that burst in 2008.

The demonstrators' anger rose after police used pepper spray to defend the security perimeter. Hundreds moved to nearby O'Connell Bridge, a key transport corridor, and the capital's major O'Connell Street thoroughfare.