The first major student protest of the year will be held tomorrow when the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) holds a Dublin demonstration in response to the Government's failure to implement USI's proposals on grant reform, student housing and fees.
The union hopes 5,000 students will attend the demonstration, which meets at around 1 p.m. at Mountjoy Square.
The students will then move off for a short march to the Dail on Kildare Street, where they will be addressed by, among others, Des Geraghty, vice president of SIPTU. USI president Philip Madden, as well as speakers from all of the USI regions, will also speak. In recent balloting in all USI-affiliated colleges, 89 per cent of students voted for "demonstration action on October 27th".
The question is, in these competitive, job-oriented times, how many of these students will actually leave lectures and take to the streets? Although only 1,500 students attended a similar demonstration last year, USI's vice president and campaigns co-ordinator, Julian de Spainn, is upbeat about the numbers he expects tomorrow. "We are hoping for around 5,000," he says. "This is the first year that students have actually been taking ownership of what's going on. About 15,000 of them signed postcards to the Taoiseach - it's a whole new approach."
The students involved will not only come from USI-affiliated institutions but from non-affiliated colleges such as Waterford IT and NUI Maynooth. For some travelling from outside Dublin, the protest will involve missing a day of classes, but de Spainn says lecturers are supportive of the campaign.
"They realise that at the end of the day it will mean better colleges with more disadvantaged access. They will also get students who haven't been up until three the previous morning working in a fastfood joint and aren't living in squalor."
More action is planned for after the protest. The union's executive will put a list of measures to the next national council with further local actions and legislative tactics, such as private members' bills, all being mooted. "This is just the start of a rolling campaign - it doesn't end here," de Spainn says.
The Department of Education seems unmoved by the protests, sticking instead to its position that the housing issue was being addressed by the creation of tax incentives for those building student accommodation and that it is already investing billions in education. Further grants for the "very disadvantaged", in the region of £1,000, are already believed to be under consideration by the Minister.
The Minister's position has struck a chord, at least in his own patch at UCC. Even before the results of the ballot were in, the students' union there had decided not to send anyone along to the march.
"People feel that there is no point in marching for unrealistic goals which are unattainable," says UCC union president Kevin McDonnell.
Although stressing that this decision in no way marks a withdrawal from USI by UCC, McDonnell adds: "It is not an anti-USI issue, but about this march there is a particularly strong feeling that it is marching for the sake of marching."
In a referendum last week at Ballyfermot Senior College there was a 98 per cent yes vote in a referendum on affiliation to USI.
College news is compiled by Paul Tanney
