A TURNOUT of up to 80,000 for next Saturday's national protest in Dublin against education cuts was predicted by several speakers at a rally in Donegal town.
More than 6,000 teachers, parents and pupils marched through the town on Saturday in support of the campaign against what successive speakers called "draconian measures" recently announced by the Government.
Protesters, including dozens of retired teachers, marched past Tánaiste Mary Coughlan's main constituency office on their way to the town-centre rally in The Diamond. They carried hundreds of banner proclaiming "Hands off class size" and "Don't make children pay".
Former minister of state Pat the Cope Gallagher, the Tánaiste's Fianna Fáil Donegal South West constituency colleague, was among the marchers but he didn't join the platform party.
He said: "I want to gauge the level of concerns and bring that back to the Minister for Education. I feel it's the very best I owe my constituents. I want him to know how the cuts are affecting people."
The rally was the last in a series around the country before next Saturday's big Dublin march.
Irish National Teachers' Organisation president Declan Kelleher claimed 44,000 people had now come out in protests against cutbacks in a system which, he said, was already "underresourced, understaffed and underfunded."
INTO general secretary John Carr, a Donegal native, said: "Parents, teachers, management authorities all over the country are saying to the Government that these cuts are not acceptable. The clear message is that we've got to sit down and find a solution."