Molesworth Street was thronged with protesters of all shapes and sizes. They were united against one target: the Government
AFTER THE grey army of OAPs and the throngs of students, it was the turn of the teachers to converge on Leinster House and vent their rage at Government cutbacks.
Except it wasn’t just teachers – there were college students, parents, school managers, children, politicians, union officials and ordinary citizens.
It was a cold and wet night in Dublin city centre and thousands turned out in force. Even if the noisy atmosphere didn’t reach the heady heights of the grey army’s protest last week, the anger on the street was unmistakable.
Éimear Dolan from Killorglin, Co Kerry – holding a placard reading, “Hey TDs, leave our kids alone!” – said parents and teachers in the area were furious.
“I’m a teacher and a parent and I’m completely outraged. They’re going after older people and children,” she said.
“We thought we had made progress over the past few years, and now we’re going to lose all of that.”
A noisy group of 60 teachers and parents, who set out from St Mochulla’s national school in Co Clare on a six-hour round trip by bus, were making their voices heard.
“You say cutback – we say fight back!” the group shouted in unison.
The school’s principal, Brian Torpey, said the cutbacks would result in class sizes of anything up to 37 students.
“We’re basically going back to the 1980s with a 21st century curriculum and 21st century children,” he fumed.
“At the moment we have 261 children with 10 mainstream teachers. Next year, we’ll have 270 students and nine teachers. That means much larger class sizes for everyone,” he said.
As the street began to fill, placards began to fill the air. Most were targeting the Minister for Education. Inevitably, bat puns were the order of the day.
“Batt-man fled to China out of OUR hell” read one. “The Government’s gone batty!” said another, complete with a hand-drawn sketch of Batt O’Keeffe’s head emerging from a Batman-style body.
It didn’t stop there.
“Batt-man robin’ our kids’ future!” and “No to Batty-cuts”. The list went on.
Brian Cowen didn’t escape the wrath of protesters, either. “Cowen Coward” read one. “Cutback Cowen” read another.
Ominously, one protester attached a picture of the Taoiseach to a Halloween-style coffin.
One protester, Emer Kinsella from Arklow, seemed to capture the essence of the day with her home-made banner.
“Wot efeck will skoool kutz hav?”
“Batt O’Keeffe is totally out of line,” she said, her voice tight with anger.
“He’s saying we should just lie down and take our medicine. But we’re not going to stand for any more broken promises. There is only one word for this: immoral.”
As the rain began to fall heavily, teachers Susan Vaughan and Neasa Kearney from Gorey, Co Wexford, sheltered themselves under their placards.
They said they had been struggling to cope with rising students numbers and increased demand for language support among foreign students.
“We’re going to have a total of 88 foreign students relying on two language-support teachers,” said Ms Vaughan. “It will have serious consequences down the line.”
Earlier in the day, many commentators had speculated that the numbers wouldn’t materialise or that a poorly attended rally would only undermine their cause.
There was little of that talk last evening.
As the numbers converged on Molesworth Street, teachers themselves seemed giddy with excitement at the turnout.
“There must be 20,000 here at least,” said one. “About 15,000 is what I heard,” another replied, more authoritvely.
A senior Garda, though, gave a more sober estimate.
“Ah, about 5,000,” he said. “Nothing too big, really.”
