A group of around 40 people turned up to St Stephen's Green to protest against the G8. The group the marched to the American Chamber of Commerce, where spokesman for the Dublin Alternative G8 Committee Donnacha McGill says "strings of this corrupt political regime are pulled".
Mr McGill said it was a small crowd and if it were a protest to do with a domestic issue, a larger crowd would have turned up.
“Most people are not interested in anything, only commodity fetishism, as Marx called it. They’re interested in paying their debts, which are now crippling and they’re interested in continuing a certain lifestyle based on commodities,” he said.
“I think people are perhaps aware or interested in these things, but they limited to watching these things on YouTube. That’s probably all they think they have time to do.
“People are very enchanted by Michelle and Barrack Obama and they’re not really too worried about Obama’s policies. They see a very attractive celeb and they don’t see passed that or want to see passed that.”
Despite starting the protest at the Wolfe Tone statue opposite the Shelbourne Hotel, where Ms Obama stayed the previous night with her two children, march organisers say it was a coincidence, and at the time of planning the demonstration, they did not know the Obamas would be staying there.
Gardai were present throughout the march. This protest was one aspect of the alternative G8, which included walking tours and a conference was people opposed to G8.