Students take to the street of Dublin to protest budget cutbacks

by Seanie Mac Sat Nov 01, 2008 15:51 barton.company at yahoo dot co dot uk

People can protest all they want-20 years of 'economic growth' means that we all lose out-the hospitals, public works, the money is not coming for a long while yet.
One way around it is to go back a little to cooperative farming. No I dont mean back to the land generally, (but why does it take 20 people now to sell a shlab of cais? ie marketing-legal-PR fuck me its a piece of cheese and all these little students wanting apiece of the action) but farming has been left to rot at the cost of this hideous growth of money moving.

Part of the problem is that peoples expectations are so high that nobody seems to want to dirty their hands on the land. Arrogance. An economy based on greed and everyone wanting a slice.

Its the same in Jersey where I am now living. Certain governmental figures around Europe have pumped tonnes of public money into the markets your money no less, and they have waxed rich from the profit. They were warned weeks before that disaster was looming and forewarned is fore-armed as they say. They got out.
Now we all have to pay for their iniquities.

This is part of the price. Service industries my erse-
that was always going to be undercut by developing nations. Get the wellies on it'll be a long winter.
Disclaimer-I think i know what Im talking about but I probably dont so if ur gonna abuse me then bear this in mind.

by @ Fri Oct 31, 2008 15:33 stopfees at gmail dot com

FEE bloc.

by Brian in Glasgow - SWP Tue Oct 28, 2008 16:10

Hi - This is a message of solidarity to the students and pensioners in Ireland who have declared war on the government with ferocious militancy.

I will be ensuring these pictures are circulated in the student press over here in Glasgow as we have many battle cut out for us and we ought to learn the lessons of your campaign.

This was a fantastic demonstration of people power and is an important precedent for fighting the attacks which the state will mount on ordinary people to attempt to make them pay the cost of restoring industry to its former levels of profitability.

Some comments have been made on this page which attack students as "middle class" and says there are "sent to Uni by their "fat Cat" parents". I doubt you had very many home-owning or shareholding students on that demo. Anyone who tries to wedge a divide between the "real working class" and students clearly does not understand the role students play in today's world - University is no longer a prep school for the elite. It is a conveyor belt to produce an educated working class to labour for the profits of capitalism. The state does not charge us fees to exclude the working class (although some may have reason to celebrate that) but rather they do this so the ruling class does not need to pay to educate us and therefore they get more profits for less investment.

Like in 68 students can be the detonator for a real fight for a just society. To do that we must link with train unions, pensioners, the anti-war movement and immigrant workers. If we do this we will smash the Neo-liberal governments in Ireland and the UK.

by Mature Student - TCD Mon Oct 27, 2008 23:09

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 !!!

by Eoin Dubsky Mon Oct 27, 2008 22:16

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?

Caption: Video Id: DDcPNHGDroo Type: Youtube Video
Student Protest in Paris. Youtube Video

by shawney Mon Oct 27, 2008 19:38

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 Shauna - OSF Sun Oct 26, 2008 13:20

Keep up the marching!!

Caption: Video Id: 8smjZue-1Us Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video

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 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 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 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 Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:38

images (c)

by Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:34

images (c)

by Paula Geraghty Fri Oct 24, 2008 21:23

Images (c)

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