DELIVERY RIDERS HAVE gathered in Dublin city centre this afternoon to protest against violence towards them, bike thefts and poor pay conditions.
The protest kicked off at 4pm, with people travelling or commuting in the city urged to avoid the O’Connell Bridge/Trinity College area.
Photos from the scene show protestors gathered on the south side of O’Connell Bridge in the centre of the city.
Riders will make their way from the D’Olier Street and Westmoreland Street side of O’Connell Bridge past Trinity College and head down George Street and Aungier Street before concluding at Stephen’s Green.
Couriers held a similar protest last week to highlight their concerns after a delivery rider from Bolivia was allegedly stabbed in Temple Bar on 19 July, the same day that American tourist Stephen Termini was attacked by a gang on Talbot Street.
Cyclists working for food delivery services such as Deliveroo have long been the target of anti-social behaviour in certain areas of the city, with groups of young people occasionally assaulting them or attempting to steal their bicycles.
John works as a delivery rider in Dublin, but he no longer works in the city centre due to the threat of violence. He told The Journal that the protest is being organised because the issue has been “overlooked” in recent years.
“You just don’t feel safe to ride in Dublin and do the deliveries here because everywhere you go, if you find a group of teenagers, like five or six people, you are already in danger. You look at them, and you say, ‘Well, what are we gonna do now?’,” he told The Journal.
“We have been doing deliveries here for years now and we don’t have this feeling of safety while working, while providing the service for the community.
“We want to protest to try and get this safety from the guards, from the government, and make sure we can do our work without having to worry about getting stabbed or getting knocked out.”
While John has never been physically attacked himself while working, he has friends that have experienced violence in the capital.
“Two of them managed to get into a very serious situation where one of them had his arm broken and the other one had to go to the hospital with a bad cut on the head,” he said.
John now owns his own bike shop. He said that he has many friends and customers who have had their bikes stolen while working.
“Every week, at least, a client comes in and says: ‘Oh, I got my bike stolen or something happened with me and a friend of mine’. You hear stories like that on a daily basis.”
Debora Santana has helped to organise the protest today. She told The Journal that violence against delivery riders has increased since the Covid pandemic.
She said that every day, they “suffer from robberies, attacks and physical and verbal aggression”.
This week, Debora said a man tried to steal her bike in Portobello, while other times, she said she has had people try to hit her, pull her bag from behind to knock her down and steal her bike.
She is calling for the Government to ensure the safety of riders working in the city.
“In 2020 we had the death of Thiago Cortes and we don’t want that to happen again,” she said.
Thiago Cortes was killed following a hit-and-run incident in Dublin in August 2020.
A teenager was later charged over the incident. He pled guilty to dangerous driving causing death and to failing to report the incident, and was remanded in juvenile detention for two years.
John said that incidents of violence and aggression towards riders are often perpetrated by teenagers, which often means that “nothing happens” when it is reported to Gardaí.
“They don’t do anything else because obviously, the guard knows if they bring them in, that just won’t work because they’re teenagers. I believe that it has to come from above first and then the guards can take action.”
He added that he hopes the protest will prompt the Government to act.
“We just want someone to look over us and say, if somebody does hurt or threaten anybody who is working at their working time, there is going to be severe consequences.”
The English Language Student’s Union (ELSU), who are supporting the protest today, have invited GAA supporters and the general public to attend after the All-Ireland final “to show the world that soundness and decency is still the national Irish currency”.
Fiachra Ó Luain, the co-founder at ELSU, said he is supporting the protest because the attacks on delivery riders will only get worse unless the Government acts.
“It’s either pay attention to these things now or wait for someone else to die,” he said.
“It’s not getting better and the reason that we need to focus minds is because we don’t know who could be attacked next. It’s really scary actually, and the best way to fight against that fear is to show that we’re all on the same page.
“For me, if I was to define what is Irishness, it’s being sound, being a nice person to be around, welcoming people… and that’s at risk at the moment because instead of curiosity and sadness, now we have fear. We don’t want Dublin to become a place where people don’t talk to each other out of fear.”
Riders are also protesting to highlight pay conditions, with one rider telling The Journal that the minimum rate of pay a rider earns on a journey that takes less than 1km is €2.90.
Many delivery riders who are on student visas are only allowed to engage in casual employment for less than 20 hours per week during college term time, and no more than 40 hours per week outside of college term time.
Ó Luain said those rules need to be changed by the Government.
“Those laws were designed in 2010. It was quite cheap to rent a room in 2010. Now you cannot afford to feed a budgie on the rules that we have at the moment,” he said.
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