After a mandate from DCU’s Class Rep Council, a historic referendum was held in DCU this week to ask students their opinion on how higher education should be funded in Ireland. The original mandate put before the council had four options for students to vote on, but left out the option of a “fully free…
// against the neoliberal restructuring of Irish education
Category Archives: Campaign for Free Education
Questions for your Canvasser
Q: Do you support a graduate tax on third level students? Fine Gael have proposed a graduate tax to be placed on third level courses. This could see students paying anything between 25 to 64 thousand Euro after finishing their courses. At a time when taking a third level course is already an expensive option,…
A letter to the USI President from a part-time student
To Gary Redmond, I am currently a part-time student, paying fees in NUI Maynooth. I am also a full time worker. I am writing to express my disgust at your statement below: From The Irishtimes online: “USI is saddened by the actions of a small minority of people who staged a sit-in protest at the…
Remembering the Campaign for Free Education: Basis for the future
Written in 2006 by current Labour Party Councillor, Dermot Looney. Dermot Looney leaves UCD once and for all with confidence in future radicalism.
Student activism in 2002/3 – the Campaign for Free Education
The CFE was the Campaign for Free Education. It existed the summer of 2002 and the summer of 2003 and was predominantly based in UCD. Mary (MOF) spoke to two activists from the CFE campaign to find out what student activists today can learn from their experiences.
Beyond Protest To Resistance – An Overview of the Campaign for Free Education
Originally written in the Summer of 2003. For other accounts of the last time the government tried to introduce fees in 2002- 2003, see here and here It’s been something of a heady year in UCD, sometimes it feels like everything has happened so fast that a year has passed in a month. Then at…
Campaign for Free Education Response To Government Plans.
‘Draw the lesson that the time for waiting for politicians or union leaders to deliver is over. Its time to organise ourselves’ The Campaign for Free Education has welcomed the announcement by the Government to invest 42 million in improving the grants system as evidence that direct action can work in fighting against the cutbacks…
Fees Defeated – Direct Action Works
At a press conference about an hour ago, Noel Dempsey announced that he would not be reintroducing fees and that he had secured an extra 42 million directly from the exhequer to improve the grants system. After a prolonged campaign of direct action which saw tens of thousands of students take to the streets over…
Campaign for Free Education and USI Take Action
A number of Campaign for Free Education activists took part in an actions today with the Union of Students Ireland around Dublin. The CFE has been one of the most formidable opponents of fees and cutbacks in education since the summer. It has organized numerous on-campus demonstrations in UCD making it a place of hostility…
Silent Long Enough! Campaign for Free Education Direct Action At USI Protest
The last time we gathered outside government buildings to oppose fees, we were told to go home and write letters to our local TD, as a result the march barely made the news. At the demonstration today, the CFE were determined to organise real action against the government, as USI mouthed off from a truck,…