Students take to the street of Dublin to protest budget cutbacks

by Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:23

Images (c)

Students receive a different treatment to pensioners- the state gets worried

by Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:34

images (c)

by Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:38

images (c)

by Jim Sat Oct 25, 2008 14:00

Most of the college rich kids have had everything handed to them by their fat cat parents.
The ordinary workclass family can't afford to send their kids to college where they would be socially excluded by their posh peers anyway and the middle class jobs are ring fenced for the people from South Dublin addresses and posh accents.
The working class should have come out on the street and sent these aristocrats packing the same way they send the Love Ulster away with their tails between their legs.
I'm not paying my hard earned wages to subsidise rich kids who want have life experiences and talk guff about Socrates.
Reintroduce fees and crucify these molly-coddled elite.
It's hard enough to be robbed by the rich when it comes to electricity, gas, food, water and everything else besides only to asked to make an unvoluntary payment to give the capitalist piglets a gilded safety net.
I'm a disgusted that indymedia would post this self-congradulatory nonsense.

by Working class Sat Oct 25, 2008 15:22

Anyone can post whatever they want on indymedia, as long as it is within the guidelines. Why did you not organise a counter demonstration and take pictures yourself and put them here?

by Don Sat Oct 25, 2008 16:50

"Most of the college rich kids have had everything handed to them by their fat cat parents.".

I work and I'm in college. Educated workers generate more productivity and wealth for the country. Hence it makes sense to pay for education. Also, the "working class" generally pay less taxes anyway.

by screwed student - willbegforfood.org Sun Oct 26, 2008 01:22

@ The first poster-- What are you talking about?? POOR STUDENTS from WORKING class families can get GRANTS. Believe me many do. I see many working class people in college who are better off than me! My family being the "middle class fatcats" do not recieve a damn thing -- and I dont recieve shit from my so called allegedly "rich" parents. I have a 10,000 loan to pay off, and I'm working too and I'm still damn broke without any f*cking chance of getting a proper job out of all this given the recession etc. And now I pay top shelf if I want to go back to college next year. Fuck fianna fail. The lower middle classes always get screwed.

And then the bastard banks get bailed out and the gov lets off the Big Business fuckers who are the main shites who should've footed a 5% tax increase instead of shafting the broke ass students and helpless elderly. So fuck you.

by Shauna - OSF Sun Oct 26, 2008 14:20

Keep up the marching!!

Embedded video Youtube Video Id:=8smjZue-1Us

by shawney Mon Oct 27, 2008 20:38

congrats to all who protested. we need more of this in ireland , we dont need these politicians, the irish people need to get off their knees and say 'enough is enough' otherwise this country is going to wreak and ruin- what about the scumbag banks in this country next!!

by Eoin Dubsky Mon Oct 27, 2008 23:16

Thanks for posting these great photos, and the video clip.

Here's a video clip from the student protests in Paris a few years ago which Nina and I made. The students fought hard, and they won. The secret to their success was solidarity -- from unions, to other social groups, and with international student and youth groups. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDcPNHGDroo

Something really inspiring and uplifting about the photos above is to see people who are protesting for their first time. There's this rule written somewhere in an activist handbook that says you need to look angry or serious or bored whenever you're taking action -- it's such a relief to see people ripping up that rule book! :-)

Is there somewhere (like a webpage or a powerpoint somewhere) which explains the students' campaign and quetions-and-answers? Something I can direct people to?

Student Protest in Paris. Youtube Video Id:=DDcPNHGDroo

by Mature Student - TCD Tue Oct 28, 2008 00:09

Students must maintain their protest actively, by nominating Student Reprresentatives to stand as candidates all across Ireland in next June's local elections !

Students can be trusted to stand up for the medical card rights of their grandparents too as Guardians of the Grey-Haired:-)

Free Fees were never under threat, that was a blind, a decoy from the start. What the government wanted to do all along was to, as they did, massively increase the Registration Fees, only a few hundred a few years ago - and now topping 1,500 Euro annually.

These registration Fees will be increased from Budget to Budget until they eventually overtake the actual Fees, which will remain Free, with the Registration Fees taking over as the main fees. I can see all this happening over the next five years.

To be fair, students who pass local authority means tests for grants do not have to pay these Registration Fees, so nobody is exactly prevented from Third Level Education by Registration Fees except those people who are so well off that they can't pass generous Local Authority Means-Testing, as laid down by the Department of Education.

True, there are some middle-class people caught in between , as usual, and perhaps the Government will see a way towards relieving these as special cases.

I actually attended the students' rally in the front courtyard (Parliament Square) of Trinity College, and to be honest I found all of a thousand students there in great fun and cheer, it was a day out for most of them, an excuse to get away from lectures etc -Trinity is very strict on attendance making it compulsory now for students to sign in on every lecture !

(If you want to be a student on Easy Street, choose UCD or DCU !!! ) .

And as the Trinity Students admitted, the Medical Card debacle far outshone their own demo in terms of priority amongst people and politicians alike.

Most students see the massive increases in Registration Fees as a threat to actual free fees, and, yes, they would all want to keep a close eye on that !!!