USI Protest

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday February 05, 2003 17:53 by Justin Moran - Sinn Fein maigh_nuad at yahoo dot com

8,000 students (RTE) march through Dublin

Attended the USI protest for a while this afternoon. Got to the platform at the top of Molesworth St about 10 minutes before they arrived. Young Fine Gael activists along with a couple of Labour activists and TDs Jan O'Sullivan and Kathleen Lynch were there before me in order to get their banners up front before the march arrived. Cynical, but effective.

The crowd could be heard some time before it arrived and it was a very impressive size and turnout as it came down Molesworth St. I saw banners from a great many colleges along with political organisations such as, Campaign for Free Education at the front, Labour Youth, Sinn Féin and the SWP (Whose NO to Fees, NO to War banner seemed to be putting two separate issues together in a mad manner)

The crowd were addressed by a couple of student union leaders who didn't do a bad job though they had to shout over the cries of CFE activists who were yelling 'Action, Not Words' (I think)

By this stage more TDs than you could shake a stick at had turned out to show support and I found myself surrounded by FG TDs. Unpleasant. The first politican to speak was Caoimhghin O'Caolain and, obviously I must be seen as biased, I thought he did very well and got the crowd going calling for a more militant attitude from USI.

Enda Kenny (Introduced as the leader of the party that abolished fees, a reference bitterly cursed by a nearby Labour activists) was next and, like a lot of people, I lost interest in the speech and wandered away round the back of the crowd.

The crowd, having listened to a lot of speeches, was trickling away rapidly at the rear. By the time I was in range of the platform again Joe Higgins was speaking and Joe, being Joe, did well.

I didn't hear Rabbitte speak and I don't know if Paul Gogarty of the Greens spoke but I suspect he might have done as he's their Education spokesperson. I wandered back to work at this point but certainly it was one of the best student protests I've seen in terms of turnout. The number of speakers was too much, far too much, and people lost interest but a good jumping off point, assuming there is a strategy to go further.

Latest reports indicate a sit-down protest is going on.