10,000 march in Dublin against next Irish budget

DUBLIN (AP) - About 10,000 socialist protesters marched Saturday through Dublin in opposition to government plans to unveil Ireland's sixth straight austerity budget.

The capital's major boulevard, O'Connell Street, was filled in both directions with marchers, some donning ghostly white masks and Santa hats.

The demonstrators were from a wide range of anti-tax campaigns, labor unions and community groups, most of them with a hard-left bent. Many bore banners denouncing government leaders and vowing not to pay new and future tax hikes.

"The government can't be given a free hand to cut whatever they like. You have to be willing to get out on the streets and do something," said Lizzy Stringer, a 26-year-old school assistant who marched in a hand-made protest suit emblazoned with words summarising the personal despair behind Ireland's debt crisis: hunger, depression, suicide.