TheCity

Tag: March

  • Irish Students Unite in Pre-Budget Rally

    Irish Students Unite in Pre-Budget Rally

     

    Third level students from all over Ireland took to the streets of Dublin yesterday for the USI March for Education.

    The protest commenced at the Garden of Remembrance and the students marched to the Dáil in torrential rain, calling on the Government to protect essential student services in next month’s budget.

    Speaking at yesterday’s rally, NCI student Rebecca Caulfield (20) said, “If we didn’t protest and costs go up in the budget, it’s going to hold a lot of people back and less people are going to go on to third level education.”

    USI president Laura Harmon said that the main goal of the rally was to protect the existing State financial support services for third level students:

    “The main thing we hope to achieve is to highlight the fact that student supports need to be protected in Budget 2015.  The student maintenance grant and the Back to Education Allowance must be protected.”

    According to DIT Student Union President Fiachrá Duffy the march was the beginning of the USI’s #EducationIs campaign which aims to show the Government that education is a very positive thing for our society.

    “It is to get people behind us”, said Mr Duffy, “It isn’t just students; it is everyone coming together to say that education is positive and it should be made more accessible and more affordable for as many as possible.”

    Mr Duffy also added that around 45% of students studying in DIT are on some sort of State financial support.

    “It is essential that we call for those financial supports to be protected for our students” he said.

    Despite the weather it was estimated that 1,500 students from throughout the country took part in yesterday’s rally, and were joined by lecturers and trade unions.

    This was a low turnout compared to previous national scale protests in 2010 and 2011, in which around 40,000 students took part. However Fiachrá Duffy said that numbers weren’t an issue.

    “I think it was important that there were people there,” said the DITSU President.

    “It was to show that students from all over Ireland are united on the same issue, and I think that it is a representation that we are all calling for the same thing,” he added.

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  • Dublin’s streets packed for march against austerity

    Dublin’s streets packed for march against austerity

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    Saturday’s anti-austerity march brought thousands out on the streets of Dublin City.

    The march, organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions, saw people from all corners of the country come to capital to demonstrate against austerity measures and taxes.

    Gathering at Parnell Square, live traditional Irish music – well known songs like the ‘Rare Old Times’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’ –  kept participants entertained while waiting patiently in the cold for the demonstration to take off.

    When the time came, approximately 10,000 strong left from the Garden Remembrance, with chants and banners at the ready.

    Despite the colds, spirits were high and all aspects of society marched side by side – the young, old, students, unemployed and employed alike.

    [youtube.com=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akQJwaG6OLc]

    Accompanying the marchers was a wide range of lively music and dramatics – including marching bands, singers, costumed performers and creative floats.

    Led by a deathly cloaked figure on a horse – demonstrators left from Parnell Square, making their way down O’ Connell Street and across College Green, before proceeding back across the O’ Connell Street bridge for a special assembly in front of the GPO.

    So many turned out for the event that tail end of the march had barely left Parnell Square while those way ahead in the lead were almost at the end point.

    This made for a parallel meeting of marchers travelling across both directions of the O’ Connell Street bridge. Here, the sound of uilleann pipes mixed with enthusiastic shouts and a lively sing along of Bob Marley’s ‘Stand Up For Your Rights’.

    Meanwhile, unified chants of “You cut, we bleed” bellowed across the Liffey. These chants echoed the general theme and feeling of the march – many hurt and worried by budget cuts and taxes to come.

    But whether marcher’s cries were heard all the way over in the offices of Kildare Street remains to be seen.

    By Liam Keegan & Aidan Knowles