WORDS: Aidan Rowe As thousands of students around the country begin a new college year in the coming weeks, the prospect of the return of tuition fees looms once again, and the need for organised grassroots student resistance becomes ever more acute. In mid-August, Labour Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn announced both further increases to…
A similar version o this article appears in The Tralee Student Blog. It’s often disheartening to see the lack of activity with regard to a student movement against the cuts. As often happens, people tend not to react to a crisis tumbling towards them until they get run over. Students cannot afford to continue behaving…
In this article posted on the USI website on February 21st USI President Gary Redmond stated the following ““USI is delighted that the Labour Party has signed our pledge not to re-introduce third level fees if they form part of the next Government…….USI is now asking all political parties to follow the example of the…
It was Salvador Allende who once said “To be a student and not a revolutionary is a contridiction.” The logic of this statement seems to have been lost on the current bunch of hacks that run our national student’s union, the Union of Students Ireland (USI). Yesterday (29/6/11), their ineptness to lead students in a…
Springtime, the New Student Rebellions (Edited by Clare Solomon and Tania Palmieri. Verso.) The autumn and winter of 2010 saw the sudden and dramatic re-emergence of radical student movements, with mass student uprisings taking place across Europe and the United States in opposition to both the austerity measures being levelled against ordinary people as a…
Yesterday, hundreds of university and school students took to the streets and marched to save education from cutbacks and fee rises! On the march there was a Free Education Bloc which contained people from the Free Education for Everyone Campaign at QUB, our sister group The Northern Ireland Student Assembly (NISA) and activists from FEE…
Lorcan Gray and Suzanne Lee, prominent activists in FEE, are running in the UCD Students’ Union elections which will take place this week. As FEE members, Free Education in a main point in both of their manifestos. Both candidates stand for; -No Re-introduction of direct tuition fees. -Abolition of the Registration fee. -No fees for…
FEE member Aidan Rowe appears alongside members of the Provisional University in DCTV‘s new Austerity TV programme.
Vote Will Shannon for SU president As the new government takes it’s seats, further cuts to our courses, grants and increases to the fees are likely. It is nothing short of a joke that the USI leadership can claim that an increase of the fees of €500 to €2000 a year was a victory….
