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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Shauna Corr

'You are making thousands and thousands of people homeless' - Trinity protesters heckle Minister Eamon Ryan

Eamon Ryan has been accused of "making thousands of people homeless" by young activists at a Trinity College Dublin 'green week' event.

The minister was heckled by a group of protesters holding an Extinction Rebellion banner over the eviction ban and climate justice.

It happened while the Minister for Environment, Climate and Transport addressed students in a packed lecture theatre on campus yesterday.

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And came just a day after the party, which supported Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in ending the eviction ban, suspended TD Neasa Hourigan for voting against them.

A group of young activists interrupted Ryan's speech on renewables and active travel, with one saying: "Minister Ryan, there can be no climate justice without social justice.

"You have paired climate justice with economic hardship, you have paired it with so much.

"You have failed to challenge the very systems that you claim to challenge here today."

Minister Eamon Ryan (pictured) is heckled by young people in the audience at an event at Trinity Green Week (Aidan Cusack/Trinity News)

Another added: "Minister Eamon Ryan, blood is on your hands and the Green Party's hands due to your complicity in the neoliberal government that has just voted to end the eviction ban.

"You are making thousands and thousands of people homeless and families and children and blood is on your hands and your government's hands."

The protesters were told "this is not the platform, save it for somewhere else please".

But another continued: "You are putting up to 27,000 working class people on the chopping block - you need to continue the eviction ban.

"We, as young activists, cannot accept that someone who had peddled for profit destruction of our environment over the last two years has any reason to engage in good faith with us. Why are you here, Eamon?

"You have facilitated the destruction and the robbery of the working class.

"It was only three years ago that you and your colleagues came to us and lied to us about how you would never enter a coalition with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail."

It is understood the student protesters were eventually removed from the room.

A spokesperson for Eamon Ryan said: "Protest is perfectly normal and is part of our democratic system. The key is to respect differences in opinions and views and to listen to them.

"But it would be an odd and diminished world if students and young people couldn't make their opinions known."

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