Over 100,000 refuse to pay for bank crisis

Trade union organisers claimed that around 110,000 people had participated in the six rallies.

The protests in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Sligo went ahead despite this week's government deal with Europe's banking chiefs.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) insisted that the country's multibillion-euro debt burden had not been solved by the agreement with the European Central Bank (ECB) to change how the state repays the colossal bill racked up by its suicidally generous bank rescue.

The government's Project Red saw €28 billion (£24bn) of promissory notes - issued after the nationalisation of the failed Anglo Irish Bank - swapped for long-term sovereign bonds.

The ECB-backed arrangement will effectively see the Anglo debt repayment stretched out over 40 years rather than 10, reducing the size of annual payments but extending the debt through generations.

The government claimed that the deal could see €1bn (£850 million) in tax rises and spending cuts avoided in coming budgets.

It also claimed that it will wipe €20bn (£17bn) off the total cost of the bailout.

But trade union leaders told the marchers that the agreement does not alter the fact that taxpayers are still footing the bill for bankers' failures.

ICTU general secretary David Begg said there was nothing fair about the new deal.

"If you read some papers today you would think we had achieved economic salvation and our problems were over," he told the rally in Dublin's Merrion Square.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. And we have over 100,000 people on the streets of Ireland today who feel the same way."

"At the onset of the crisis Ireland had one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios in Europe.

"The difference between then and now is due entirely to Ireland socialising bank debt at the behest of the ECB, to save the European banking system."