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Journalist petitioning for referendum

31-05-2011 3:28pm

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http://thescore.thejournal.ie/national-sports-journalist-sets-off-on-run-to-deliver-bailout-petition-to-the-dail-146552-May2011/

BY HIS OWN admission “the body is in poor repair” and “the joints are badly rusted,” but that didn’t stop Irish Examiner sports journalist Diarmuid O’Flynn as he set off this morning on a 153-mile run to deliver an anti-bondholder petition to Dáil Eireann.
A vocal opponent of the terms of the EU/IMF bailout, O’Flynn, who is one of the Examiner’s chief hurling writers, has been involved in organising weekly protests in his native Ballyhea since the start of the year.
Now, in what he has described as his “last hurrah,” he is making an even bigger statement, embarking on a three-day run from Cork to Dublin in order to hand-deliver the signatures which he has collected in opposition to the deal.
O’Flynn’s route will see him run from Ballyhea to Nenagh today before travelling on to Portlaoise tomorrow and arriving in Dublin on Thursday afternoon. His protest will conclude on Friday afternoon with a public march from the Garden of Remembrance to Dáil Eireann.
“I’ve been so wrapped up in this from a personal point of view that I felt I had to do something,” O’Flynn explained to TheScore.ie as he set out from Ballyhea this morning.
Like lots of people, I was just complaining for months. I voted for the new government in the hope that they might take a stronger line but they’re already caving in.Although he concedes that “the response has been extremely disappointing so far,” O’Flynn is hopeful that the protest will gather momentum over the next few days. Along with his support team, he plans to stop in a number of towns en route to Dublin in order to explain the cause and gather support for the petition.
Supporters will be asked to put their name to a statement which calls “for this deal to be undone [...] for those bondholders to be treated now as they should have been treated then, with whatever consequences they have to suffer.”
“At the very least, we petition for a referendum on this deal, that the Irish people may themselves decide whether or not it’s acceptable that they should now be saddled with this debt.”
Once Friday’s business is completed, though, O’Flynn assures me that life will continue as normal.
“I’ve a job and a wife and kids,” he explains. “There comes a time when you have to realise what the really important things are in life.”

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