Sinéad Baker, Dónal Ring & Kayle Crossan
“The government needs to consider how it focuses on education in the upcoming budget, and how the cuts to education will influence the quality of our education”.
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– Stephen McLoughlin, 2nd year Geography and Politics
“The fact that we’re here in the rain shows we’re really committed”
– Megan Leahy, 2nd Year History and Politics
“Funding for Trinity is absolutely crucial on a wide academic level, especially for Nanoscience as it is an area of science that is rapidly advancing and improving the quality and accuracy of research, and we simply cannot allow for that progress to be slowed down”.
– Daniel Boland, 2nd year Nanoscience, Physics, and Chemistry of Advanced Materials
“Students in Ireland need funding to survive.The great poncho protest of 2014 will shake the foundations of education!”
– Isabelle Duff, 2nd Year History
“Trinity has seen in the last month a decline in rankings in both QS world rankings and the Times Higher Education rankings, and it’s no surprise that this can be attributed to funding cuts. If we don’t have the sufficient funding for research, then it’s Trinity’s global image that will be damaged”
– Sinead Murray, 2nd Year History and Political Science
“I’m here today to ensure that the funds allocated to our education are not cut, because we need funding to maintain the infrastructure of our country.”
– Sophia Giannopoulou, 2nd year Business, Economics, and Social Sciences
“We are protesting for people who aren’t always in the room”
– Declan Higgins, President of NUIG Students’ Union
“I did this in Washington, Boston, and Woodstock in the sixties. Student protests haven’t changed much, except the police used to interrupt a lot more. I’m so glad Irish students are doing this. It’s wonderful. People are so much freer these days – nobody used to question anything. My advice always is: read and listen to everything, but question everything too.”
– Kathleen Heeney, Irish-American onlooker/admirer
“We’re here today to support the Union of Students in Ireland’s protest because we believe strongly in protecting our education system. Obviously we have a lot of workers who work within the education sector, in terms of cleaners, lecturers, people who work in canteens and so on. So it’s very much in the interest of workers and students that our education system is protected.”
“Also it’s important not to see students and workers as separate groups, often students are forced into jobs to pay for bills, books, food etc. and they’re all regularly in precarious positions, they’re regularly on zero-hour contracts, and I think it’s brilliant that USI and the trade union movement are standing stronger together now.”
– SIPTU representatives
“We welcome this demonstration. It’s very pleasing, and we’d like to congratulate USI on organising it. Investment in education is crucially important. Recent OECD figures indicate that public investment in education yields an internal rate of return of over 30%. We’re also very concerned about the workload placed on third-level lecturers.
“We represent lecturers in the IOTs and a number of other colleges, for issues arising around the number of hours that they’re expected to work, It’s not then possible for them to support students in the way they would like. The number of lecturers in the IOTs has fallen by almost 400 in the last few years, the number of students has risen by almost 11,500.”
– Teacher’s Union of Ireland (TUI)
“Anseo inniú tá ceardchumainn muinteóirí, foireann ollscoile, mac léinn triú leibhéil, agus Conradh na Gaeilge. Táimid ag iarraidh gach éinne a tharraingt chun lúach an oideachais a leiriú”
– Feidhlim Seoige, Leas-Úachtaráin don Ghaeilge, Aontas na Mac Léinn
“We are here to represent working people who can’t send children to college without incurring huge debts. Education is an issue for all society”
– Steve Fitzpatrick, General Secretary of Communications Workers’ Union.
“Táimid in aghaidh ciorraithe ar chursaí Gaeilge, agus táimid ag iarradh breis rogha a thabhairt do mhic léinn”
– Conradh na Gaeilge
Photo by Jack Leahy for The University Times.
