Elaine Loughlin: Have students lost their voices?

Elaine Loughlin: 'As Covid restrictions ease, it might have been expected that students would release a pent-up anger. They have plenty to be angry about.'

"No ifs, no buts, no education cuts."

When I was in college we marched.

Swarms of students would gather at the entrances to inner-city campuses. We chanted and strode down the streets of Dublin, DIT students merging with Trinity students and those from DCU and UCD.

Thousands were bussed in from Sligo, Galway, Maynooth, Cork, Carlow, Waterford and Tralee.

It became an annual thing, we would proudly shut down the city and our cries would interrupt Dáil proceedings.

What has happened to the current generation of students? Have they lost their voices?

Perhaps years of being almost ignored by those in power over successive years coupled with the pandemic have dimmed and diluted the radical, outspoken and outraged streak that students should naturally possess?

Of course, some have taken their campaigns online, but at a time when the housing crisis has literally priced many out of education and climate change is a tangible threat, two separate protests held last week could only attract small crowds.

Only about 25 people staged a sleepout on Thursday night to highlight the fact that thousands of students have been left without a place to live at the start of the new academic year. Picture: Conor McCabe Photography

Last Thursday, the USI took part in a midday picket outside the Dáil, which blocked the pavement but not the road, and about 25 people staged a sleepout that night to highlight the fact that thousands of students have been left without a place to live at the start of the new academic year.

Echoing the rhetoric of previous USI leaders, current president Clare Austick said: “We’re angry, we’re outraged, we're frustrated. We’re annoyed that the Government just has not taken our calls on board and haven’t taken the student accommodation crisis seriously enough."

She said the fact that students are now only emerging from a life on Zoom to return to campus, coupled with the "very short turnaround" for the protest, was to blame for the low turnout, but "it was never going to be tens of thousands because of Covid".

"We usually would have always had a national demonstration, this is the third year now where that couldn't happen, it couldn't happen last year with Covid, the year before that there was a storm so it had to be cancelled."

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Inside the gates of Leinster House, opposition TDs, including Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty, said the lack of accommodation is having a “profound effect” on students accessing education and has forced some to defer courses and others to live in tents.

Fridays for Future protests

The following day saw the return of the Fridays for Future climate change protests, which back in September 2019 drew 30,000 Irish young people to march, joining a global campaign of seven million people.

Second level students from Kinsale Community School at the gathering at Grand Parade, Cork City for the resumption/return of the 'Fridays for Future' climate action /climate justice global protests. Picture: Larry Cummins

For many, it was their first time participating in school strikes for climate change since the pandemic began, when restrictions halted the momentum of the movement.

In PR jargon, the protests in Dublin, Cork and Galway, would have been dubbed a soft relaunch rather than any big bang return.

Limerick teenager Saoirse Exton, who has organised rallies since 2018, said the pandemic massively impacted the school strike movement.

For me, Covid was really difficult, because I had to stop the weekly strikes. There was just not enough connection between people. People just weren't really coming, unfortunately."

While some have continued with a virtual campaign, including 14-year-old Heather Doyle from Tipperary, nothing compares to the visual impact of tens of thousands of people blocking the streets and bringing traffic to a halt.

Those who wield power may not be as influenced by a Twitter discussion or an online protest, which Ms Doyle also acknowledged: "Most likely, they are much older than us and don't use social media as much as us, so they don't see our strikes. So it has had a negative impact on that side of things."

But fellow activist Beth Doherty is more optimistic.

"After Covid, I do think we will see a shift in energy. We will see people want to come back on the streets to bring this issue to the forefront," she said.

Covid has undoubtedly discommoded students, whose only experience of third-level education over the past 18 months has been through a screen.

What you learn in college goes way beyond what is taught in the lecture room. It's about tumbling out of nightclubs and falling in love. It's about getting involved in societies, developing friendships, becoming more aware of the inequalities in society, discussing the big issues and taking a passionate stance.

UCC Students Union environment representative Alicia O'Sullivan speaking at the gathering at Grand Parade, Cork City for the resumption/return of the 'Fridays for Future' climate action /climate justice global protests. Picture: Larry Cummins

As Covid restrictions ease, it might have been expected that students would release a pent-up anger. They have plenty to be angry about.

Of course, there is still anxiety around large gatherings, but more than 41,000 people were willing to cheer on their counties at the All-Ireland finals in Croke Park this month.

In November 2010, up to 40,000 students took part in a now-infamous march to the Dáil against the proposed increase in fees and further cuts to the student maintenance grant.

Clare Austick, president of Union of Students Ireland, and members of USI, said the fact that students are now only emerging from a life on Zoom to return to campus, coupled with the "very short turnaround" for the protest, was to blame for the low turnout. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

While the exact turnout is disputed, it was acknowledged as being the "largest student protest for a generation" and the numbers were far beyond what gardaí had expected.

The following year, tens of thousands of students again paralysed the city as they marched from O'Connell Street across the River Liffey, many had been ferried in on nearly 200 buses that had started out that morning from regional college campuses.

Fast forward a decade and not only do students now pay contribution fees, which have jumped from €1,500 in 2010 to €3,000 now, but the housing crisis means students have been left homeless.

As the country emerges from the pandemic, we need to encourage young people to once again use their voices and find their feet.

Did you know?

While we have been using the transferable voting system since 1921, the concept has been around since 1819, when it was first proposed by Thomas Wright Hill. 

However, it was not used in public elections until 1856, when Carl Andrea proposed a transferable vote system for elections in Denmark.

On two occasions, in 1959 and 1968, Irish people have voted down referendums which sought to replace our proportional representation system with the British first-past-the-post system.

What to look our for this week

Tuesday: Tánaiste Leo Varadkar travelled to Washington over the weekend for high-level meetings and engagements related to commerce and trade which continue today.

Tuesday: Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien's Housing for All plan has already sparked much debate and criticism from the opposition. It will come up for discussion in the Dáil on Tuesday afternoon and the Seanad on Wednesday.

Tuesday: As hospital waiting list surpass 900,000, Sinn Féin will bring forward a motion on the issue. The party's health spokesperson David Cullinane last week published a survey of more than 600 people, 70% of whom said their mental health had severely or considerably deteriorated as a result of long wait times for treatment and care.

Wednesday: Popcorn at the ready for another installation of what has become the Zappone appointment soap opera. While the former minister has declined an invite to appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee, secretary general of the Department of the Taoiseach Martin Fraser has agreed to attend and will answer questions on the Government's special envoy appointment.

Wednesday: Officials from the Department of Health and the HSE, as well as the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), will provide an update to the Health Committee on the medical cannabis access programme.

Thursday: With the Budget fast approaching, the appearance of Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath at the Budgetary Oversight Committee should be one to watch.

Thursday: Climate change will dominate the Dáil agenda on Thursday when the upcoming Climate Action Plan is discussed during Government business time. A bill brought forward by People Before Profit TDs Bríd Smith, Gino Kenny, Richard Boyd Barrett, and Paul Murphy, which would restrict certain developments in fossil fuels infrastructure and high-energy usage data centres, will be debated later in the evening.

Politics headlines through history

September 20,  1900: Arthur Griffith established Cumann na nGaedheal alongside journalist and poet William Rooney, which later became Sinn Féin.

September 28, 1920 : The Cork No 2 IRA Brigade captured a military barracks in Mallow, Co Cork. Under the headline 'Mallow in Flames' the Cork Examiner reported that "the men in the barracks at the time were overcome and a large number of Lewis guns, rifles, ammunition and stores were taken."

September 27, 1964: The seven-man Warren Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of John F Kennedy found that the shots that killed the President the previous November were the work of one man alone - Lee Harvey Oswald. The report sharply criticised the US secret service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their security arrangements.

September 29, 1979: As the Pope arrived here on a historic visit, the Cork Examiner reported that "he flew over Shannon and straight into the hearts of Ireland's youth gathered at Galway". The front page coverage added that the "young folk went wild", then broke into a Polish song of welcome which after a while became a chant of "we love the Pope".

September 30, 2003: As the Dáil returned from the summer recess (yes they also took September off back then), a special Examiner front page asked 10 questions of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Many of the questions related to Fianna Fáil TD Michael Collins, who had hit the headlines when it was revealed that he had set up a bogus offshore account to evade paying tax. He settled the bill with the Revenue Commissioners, paying over €130,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. However, the paper claimed that there was one question on everyone's lips: "What else are you hiding from us?"