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ALMOST 1,000 STUDENTS took part in a protest in Tralee this afternoon, gardaí confirmed.
Students from the north and south campuses of IT Tralee gathered at 12.30pm to march on the constituency office of Labour Party TD, Arthur Spring.
Deputy Spring met the students outside his office. He met with USI Deputy President Kate Acheson, and officers from IT Tralee Students’ Union, including its president, Niall Harty.
Acheson commented:
“The large turnout in Tralee today is indicative of the interest we’ve received in this campaign. Thousands have turned out for marches in Galway, Cork, Dublin and in towns across Ireland. While we welcome Deputy Spring’s assurances regarding the preservation of maintenance grant rates, €3,000 fees still loom ominously. The Minister has refused to acknowledge the suffering he has caused students and families and we’re calling on parents of current or prospective college students to contact their TDs and tell them that they cannot afford such an onerously steep fee increase.
During the meeting, the student representatives encouraged Deputy Spring to vote against any Budget measures that would increase college fees and cut the maintenance grant further.
They reported that while he did not make any commitments on this, he said that he was not aware of any plans to cut the grant or to remove funding from the Student Assistance Fund (SAF).
TDs Michael Healy Rae and Martin Ferris addressed students outside the office. The protest was part of USI’s ‘Fed Up? Stand Up’ pre-Budget campaign.
Further protests are scheduled for later this week, with one in Castlebar tomorrow and another in Waterford on Thursday.
(knobbly/YouTube)
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Well done them students.
Fair dues to the students. The country is suffering but it’d cost more to have all those kids on the dole for four years and we wouldn’t have the foreign companies here if it weren’t for our educated workforce. What’s the altermative? Let all the youth emigrate without an education? We’re already underpopulated.
Arthur Spring is a yes man. Done nothing for Tralee or North Kerry. Just agrees with and does everything he is told to do by the party. More or less invisible. Hope next election he gets his marching orders. Cant come soon enough. Useless shower of Dopes down here. All mouth where nothing gets done.
Maybe Arthur could ask Dick Spring to donate his salary he is earning as a public interest director with one of the pillar banks towards student fees? At least that would mean both of them are doing something useful.
Typical Spring
FFS the Healy-Raes and an IRA apologist are leading the protest, this country is going nowhere fast
idiot…is that all you can say…this country has been going nowhere fast for the past 5 years..or hadnt you noticed…fool!!!!
The country has been going nowhere for 12 years.
Protest in Letterkenny on Wednesday and the SU are offering night club passes to anyone that turns up
So the motivation is for protestation is tickets yo a nightclub? I thought students were too broke paying fees to buy drink?
Fair play to the students in this country, Not afraid to stand up for what’s right. Shame the government really doesn’t care about what they think, sure they’ll be having the general election on a Thursday anyway when most of the students won’t be able to vote.
Why won’t they be able to vote?
Never seen such happy protesters.
The more government we want in our lives, the worse this is going to get.
We. Should. Live. Within. Our. Means.
I wonder do these students do economics?
Live within our means but pay bondholders money that we don’t have to! Billions BILLIONS !
I dabbled in economics yes. And its one over the most overrated, oversimplified, politically motivated and nonsensical disciplines in all of academia. However there’s a lot of discussion based around not living within our means during a recession that merits some analysis (as long as you don’t take it too seriously).
Austerity, or living within our means, was disastrous for a lot of countries in the last 100 years (Britain and the US in the 1920s, most of Latin America in the 1980s, Europe now). It’s also been a remarkable success (Canada in the 1990s, the Balkans in the 1990s) and the opposite approach, Keynesian Economics, has also succeeded (most notably the US now) and failed (the US in the 1970s). Unfortunately after 236 years of stellar work economists can’t tell us with any agreement why each method fails or succeeds.
So the idea that we should live within our means is (from an economists viewpoint) contentious at the best, as any of the students who studied economics would tell you.
We have paid anyone yet, the money has been borrowed and probably won’t be paid back pixie heads
It will be paid back Witzend. We are already paying it back €3.5 billion a year in interest and down payments on the original “loan”.
Did you miss the memo about the 11 figure deficit?
Or billuns as Healy Rae wud say
Nope, but you must of missed the memo about the fact we are already paying back for the bail out? Did you also miss the memo that the government paid bond holders €18 billion this year and will be paying over €23 billion next year?
Budget 2013 targeted savings €3.5 billion money due to be paid back for the “bail out” including interest in 2013 €3.5 billion. What nice neat figures….
Ryan, I didn’t mean the concept of economics was just for students. Our beloved politicians need some lessons too
How r we lazy I’m a mature student lost my job I’m not signing on once a month I’m doing somethin with my life to try n gain new skill to get a job explain how that is lazy
Apologies in advance, for hijacking this thread. I’m only doing so in order to ask why a previous article has had the comments section shut down. It seems to me that it was probably done by extremely wealthy and powerful people, who have sent in their two legged legal attack dogs, in order to muzzle free speech. A fledgling online news service would have scant resources to combat such a threat. It might be that an extraordinary general meeting, might have recently been held, by extraordinary well fed and secretive fat cats.
Which article?
Agreed.
The one below.
What the bejaysis are ya on about?
workshy layabouts,put the pot noodles down lads and get a job
@mick lennon…Got to be the most uneducated comment of the week!
Care to explain your opinion there that’s small minded talk that I take as an insult I worked for years in construction n lost my job but am I sitting at home all day doin nothin no I’m not I decided to go back and learn a new skill set so I can better myself and get a job all students are not lazy they live within their means as its hard to afford college easy tell u haven’t been
@Angela I couldn’t afford college thats why im uneducated,now where’s my prize?
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