Several student groups joined a march of around 300 people today, calling for radical political change as the country awaits the outcome of talks between its parties after February’s general election.
Marchers voiced their opposition to a proposed political agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, chanting “stop the stitch up”, and “whose streets? Our streets”.
The crowd met at the Garden of Remembrance, where they heard a number of speeches from politicians and student leaders – including Laura Beston, the president of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU).
Beston, in a speech that was highly critical of recent rent increases in several universities, told the crowd that “students around the country are suffering enough”.
“Every single week”, she said, “we’ll get cases of students who are struggling because they’re not able to keep on top of their college work, or they’re struggling emotionally or financially. And this is the case in every college across the country”.
TCDSU was not attending the march in an official capacity, Beston told The University Times.
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith said: “We want to see students not working every hour God sends them because they have to pay rent.”
Penel Norman, a member of Cut the Rent TCD, told The University Times: “It’s ridiculous how much the previous government expect of students. That lack of funding is a big reason why universities have had to become these corporate models.”
“It’s so important for improving our goals”, Norman said, “but then also moving progress for groups were connected with, because of course student housing is an intersectional issue. The rights of everyone are connected to the rights of student housing so making a progressive government that can fight for everyone is so important”.
Speaking to The University Times, activist and Trinity research assistant Conor Reddy said: “We’re marching today because there was a massive vote for change a few weeks ago”, she said. “It looks at the minute that there will be a stitch up that will stop that from happening.”
“We want to see the mandate for change delivered”, said Reddy, who recently ran for People Before Profit in the Dublin “The way to do that is to have a minority left government. put it up to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to increment legislation immediately legislation to build houses, to tackle the climate emergency and to address the crisis in the health service.”
“We dare Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to take down a government like that”, Reddy said.
Ruth Coppinger, the Solidarity–People Before Profit politician currently running for the Seanad, told The University Times that colleges increasing rents are “exploiting the fact that they know there’s a housing crisis, and putting the costs of underfunding of the university sector onto the backs of students and their families”.
“If they need more funding, we need to put the pressure on central government to get it”, she said.
