IT’S JUST OVER A year since 40,000 students took to the streets of Dublin to oppose the reintroduction of tuition fees. That day, their voices were heard loud and clear and, in the run-up to the election, the Labour Party signed a pledge not to reintroduce fees. A year on, the landscape has changed.
Ahead of December’s budget comes a flood of official proposals on how to address a third-level funding crisis, and what role proposed fees, methods of charging fees, and cuts to grants will play. Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn appears to admit there is an inevitability to fees in some form.
A cap on student numbers, proposed by the Higher Education Authority in a report for the Minister, was seen as disastrous by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), as was another money-saving proposal – scrapping all maintenance grants for students studying postgraduate courses. USI has continued to take one line: Stop fees. Save grants. No cuts. No caps.
Among the student body – one of the few groups in the country who take to the streets in large numbers to have their voices heard – some are militant about today’s protest; others see it as “a day out”.
Una Maguire, 21, from Dingle in Co Kerry, is in her third year of music and Irish at University College Cork (UCC). Like many students for whom job prospects in Ireland don’t really exist upon graduation, she was hoping to continue her education. The proposal to stop maintenance grants for postgraduate courses would put a stop to that.
“I would have been thinking about doing a masters. That would be ruled out totally if I couldn’t get a grant.” Already she finds it “really hard to get by”.
There’s added tension on campus this week since the president of UCC, Dr Michael Murphy, said last Saturday that student fees of €4,000 to €5,000 per year would be necessary to maintain the quality of their education. A protest was held outside of his office on Monday.
Maguire also says there’s anger towards politicians. “Labour promised and promised and promised there would be no fees and they’ve totally turned their backs on students.”
The anti-Labour Party sentiment is strong among the students spoken to for this article. Most can list chapter-and-verse Labour’s third-level education policy and how the party has reneged on it.
A special cynicism is reserved for Education Minister Ruairi Quinn. The message USI has been driving about Labour politicians signing a pledge (indeed, USI head Barry Redmond this week sent newsdesks photos of Quinn signing the pledge) and backtracking has got through. Students aren’t angry at the Government; they’re angry at Labour.
There are of course other “local issues”, as Ciaran Nevin, the 24-year-old president of the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) students’ union puts it. Nevin, from Leitrim, who graduated from mechanical engineering last year, is in the first generation of his family to go to college and has an astute understanding of the issues behind the protest.
For DIT, the local issue is the Grangegorman campus, a long-time, long-fingered project that had funding withdrawn last week in a series of announcements from the Government’s capital-spending programme.
“We’re in 39 buildings across the city, so it makes it difficult . . . Students have been participating in committees, designing campuses, playing their part and getting involved. They’ve been accepting of a lack of facilities because ‘a new campus was coming’.”
Nevin believes fees are “a distilled version of what the protest is about” and points out the paradox in students being more politically aware than ever, but more disenfranchised.
While Grangegorman weighs heavily on the minds of DIT students, Nevin says there are more pressing concerns. “Our own buildings are crumbling, but students aren’t coming into us because Grangegorman isn’t going ahead,” he says. “They’re coming in because they can’t make it to Friday, because they’re broke.”
In NUI Galway, Professor Pat Dolan is looking at the big picture. As well as being the director of the Unesco Child and Family Research Centre, he’s the Unesco chair in Children, Youth and Civic Engagement. Well versed on youth movements around the world, he’s just back from a youth forum in Paris.
Prof Dolan says the overall sentiment guiding student protests in Ireland is uncertainty. “‘What does my future hold for me? Where is my future going to be?’ These are things that, 10 years ago, weren’t on the minds of students.”
The conversations he hears on campus are about employment. “If they’re training as teachers and they’ve no chance of getting a job, that’s very tangible and practical. It’s not an intellectualised argument; it’s real and grounded and purely around economic issues.”
He believes society must give young people the opportunities to participate outside the arena of protest. “The enthusiasm is there, that willingness is there. If we don’t harness it, that could be turned into a negative energy.”
Eoin Ó Liatháin, 21, from Glasnevin in Dublin, is on a sabbatical from English studies at Trinity College while he holds the position of president of the college philosophical society. “There’s very much a fundamentalism approach the students’ union has, very much ‘no fees’ – the idea of debating the issue isn’t really given any air time,” Ó Liatháin says.
He believes fees should be introduced in an efficient system that makes people pay if they can afford to do so, and offers support to those who can’t pay. “People need to stop assuming they deserve these things . . . Trinity is full of middle-class students who want middle-class jobs. You can’t expect every tax payer in the country to pay for that.”
He won’t be protesting this Wednesday, “If there is a student movement, I don’t feel part of it. I don’t see students marching against the injustices of foreign governments, or issues that don’t affect them . . . I would feel privileged to go to college. We’re a lucky bunch.”
In the National College of Ireland (NCI) in Dublin, conversations revolve around a fear of losing grants, fees and the upcoming protest. Emma O’Hanlon, 22, from Ballyfermot in Dublin, is studying Business Management. She believes one of the main issues behind the protest is what she calls the “lying” of Labour TDs.
“It’s a big-picture protest. It’s not just about fees going up; it’s the whole implications that come with fees and grants being cut,” O’Hanlon says. “It’s about not being able to extend our education. It’s about not being able to afford to go to college or university. It’ll affect our living standards, jobs. And then knowing that you’re probably going to have to emigrate.”
The possibility of fees being introduced and grants cut means O’Hanlon is already wondering if half of her friends will be able to return to college next year. The mooted cut in the postgraduate grant also affects her. “I was planning to stay here and do my masters, but I think after NCI I’ll go to London, try to get a job and do a part-time masters.”
For now, O’Hanlon says, protest is the best way for the student body to articulate its discontent. “You have to speak out. You have to say you’re upset. You have to show people there are implications for politicians.”
Five student worries
– Uncertain future:What will they do post-college? Where will they be living? What will their friends be doing?
– Fees and grants:How will they pay if fees are reintroduced? How will they get by if grants are cut?
– Emigration:A new reality for many.
– Jobs:A lack of part-time work means they have no weekly income, and the dearth of employment after college is also extremely daunting.
– The Labour Party:Many have learned their first lessons in how election promises are one thing, but implementing them is another.
