Joe O’Connor | Guest Writer
Make no mistake about it, Budget 2014 was another very difficult one containing some extremely severe measures.
Our seventh successive austerity budget marked another €2.5 billion adjustment, and vulnerable sectors of society were impacted once again. This included hits to our young unemployed, pensioners and the bereaved.
It is in this context that after four years of consecutive cuts in either the rate or the threshold, the protection of the student maintenance grant marks a considerable achievement and a turning point.
In assessing the political impact of cuts prior to this Budget, it was seen that targeting third-level students was one of the more palatable ways to bring about savings. After successive national campaigns which failed to realise their objectives, the student movement was in dire need of a win, in an economic climate where wins don’t come at all easy. Failure breeds apathy and it was clear that students needed to see some delivery on their efforts.
With the Budget two months earlier, our national campaign efforts needed to start two months earlier. At the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) National Council in Waterford in July, SU officers from across the country unanimously approved a Pre-Budget Submission calling for the protection of the grant and the Back to Education Allowance, a commitment that no deferred payment scheme would be introduced, and investment in the Youth Guarantee.
Despite being pragmatic objectives which took into account the economic context and timelines we were faced with, significant threats to realising these goals existed. Severe cuts to the maintenance grant were widely reported throughout the summer, with Education facing up to €100 million in cuts. Protecting the Back to Education Allowance seemed an uphill struggle against a backdrop of a demand for €440 million of savings in Social Protection.
Fine Gael backbenchers were calling for student loans. Public Expenditure officials for larger fee contributions. University Presidents, including the Trinity Provost, for full fees to be paid by students.
We were single-minded in our focus on delivering these objectives through constructive engagement, and conducted an intensive high-level lobbying campaign which ultimately proved successful.
Our final Pre-Budget Briefing Event was attended by over 60 members of the Oireachtas. This was designed to present a final opportunity to hammer home our message. By the end of the day, Minister Quinn and the Department of Education and Skills had received representations from more than ten TDs specifically about the importance of protecting the maintenance grant.
If we had fallen short, we were primed and ready to oppose any further cuts to student supports with firm resistance. Several options, including direct action, would have been presented to our Post-Budget National Council. As someone that responded to last year’s grant threshold cut by chaining myself in to the Taoiseach’s constituency office, I would have been advocating this course of action.
After all, we’re all fighting for the same reasons, and for the same common belief. Turning on ourselves serves absolutely nothing.
I am in agreement that merely protecting the maintenance grant is not good enough. But it does represent a step in the right direction which we must build on.
The same rationale and arguments which won out on the importance of the maintenance grant will continue to be relevant for future campaigns and Budgets. Our next wins may come a little easier. And students can see that our campaigning can make a difference.
It also means that the near 80,000 students on a maintenance grant and their families, who are already struggling to meet the significant cost of college, are not burdened further. This is hugely significant.
So where next for the student movement?
A large debate on the future of third-level funding is looming. USI fundamentally believes that third-level education should be free and accessible to all through public investment. We will be working with the Nevin Economic Research Institute on a new funding policy for USI’s position, which we intend to launch at our Annual Congress next year.
We will continue to campaign to see the Student Contribution Charge, now at €2,750 and due to hit €3,000 in 2015, reduced to pre-crisis levels through additional State investment in line with economic recovery.
We are also working on a comprehensive paper for reform of the current student maintenance grant scheme.
We will be engaging with the Department, HEA, commercial credit institutions and the Irish League of Credit Unions with the intent of delivering an affordable loan product for postgraduate students.
Furthermore, while the €14 million euro investment in the Youth Guarantee announced in Budget 2014 is welcome, something USI have consistently campaigned on, it must represent merely a starting point to tackling the youth unemployment crisis. At the very minimum, the investment should now be equalised with the amount saved on the welfare reductions for under 26’s announced in Budget 2014.
For too long, students have been seen as being inactive at the ballot box. Put simply, students do not vote in great numbers, politicians know this, and it influences their decision-making. That is why USI have created SERD, a national student voter database which will allow us to communicate directly on elections, referendums, and issues and decisions facing students.
We intend to register 50,000 students on this database by the local and European elections of next year. Linked to constituencies and public representatives, this would allow us to create a powerful voting bloc capable of radically altering the outcome of any election or referendum.
I would call on people to engage with and input into their SU’s as we undertake the process of next steps, and have your say on the future direction of the national student movement.
After all, we’re all fighting for the same reasons, and for the same common belief. Turning on ourselves serves absolutely nothing.
Access to a quality education is a right and not a privilege. If we want to make this ideological belief a reality, together, we’re stronger.
Illustration by Megan McDermott
