USI Officers trained by enemies of the Free Education movement

In what should be seen as a surprise, but has become the norm these days, the incoming officers of the USI and all the constituent SUs around the country attended their training on Sunday the 15th of July with Mary O’Rourke in attendance as one of the speakers.

Mary O’Rourke, also known as “Mammy Fianna Fail” has voted in favour of increases to the registration fee on numerous occasions whilst serving with her beloved party, Fianna Fail, in carrying out the neo-liberal agenda.

She was joined by Tom Boland, the Chief Executive of the Higher Education Authority. Uncontroversial you say, until you realise that Mr Boland has consistently called for the reintroduction of full fees. As well as that, at the last USI National Congress he told students that the only way they could resist cutbacks to education was if other marginalised groups were hit with austerity measures, including pensioners, the disabled and the unemployed.

Finally, failed presidential candidate, Mary Davis, completed the line-up. Mary is known most famously for receiving over €190,000 from Fianna Fail ministers after they appointed her to various bodies to operate in their interests.

So this is what our new officers will be listening to. Here’s hoping some of them have the courage to denounce the USI for inviting such people. In the meantime, we are left with another reason to build FEE and reclaim the union from the careerist right-wing hacks who are hell-bent on destroying the Irish student movement. Time to get the wheels in motion for September, now.