Mayo IPSC to protest EU ministers’ visit to county

Mayo IPSC is holding two peaceful demonstrations during the visit of EU ministers to Mayo for Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The protests are taking place at Foxford Bridge tomorrow (Sunday) at 6 p.m., and opposite St. Mary’s Secondary School, Ballina, on Monday at 7.30 a.m.

Medea Benjamin, activist, co-founder of Code Pink and Global Exchange, and author of 11 books on war, peace and US foreign policy, will join the Foxford demonstration.

The demonstrations come just after the world passed 1,000 days of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Protesters will call on Ireland and the EU to end their complicity in Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the people of Palestine and Lebanon.

Ireland’s EU Presidency is being held under the slogan 'Ní neart go cur le chéile'. Mayo IPSC says this must not be allowed to become an empty slogan while the EU continues to abandon the principles of human rights, dignity and international law that it claims to uphold.

EU ministers will meet in Mayo to speak about social protection, poverty, workers’ rights, disability inclusion and protecting the vulnerable. Mayo IPSC insists that these principles cannot be separated from the EU’s wider political choices, including its continued facilitation of Israel’s genocide, its failure to impose meaningful sanctions, and its increasing push towards militarisation.

The group is calling for sanctions on Israel, an end to the EU-facilitated genocide, a rejection of EU militarisation, and the protection of Irish neutrality.