Thousands of third-level students in colleges across the State walked out at 11.30am on Thursday as part of a fight to "make Ireland a home for young people again".
The walkout follows similar action that took place in October 2022, when thousands of college students walked out of lecture halls to bring attention to both the student accommodation and the cost-of-living crisis.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has also launched a petition to the Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe, demanding he support students and invest in third-level education.
@TheUSI national walk out, Ollscoil na Gaillimhe.
Students deserve a safe, affordable place to stay. Housing is a human right, but not under Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael.
Vote. Them. Out. https://t.co/VGiAnlvJen pic.twitter.com/c0AUcIg8ut
Advertisement— Emer🪩 (@emernicroibin) October 17, 2024
The vice president of student life and deputy president of Maynooth Student's Union (MSU), Kyla Henry, said the desired outcome of the protest is to show the force of the student movement and to kickstart the journey of making Ireland liveable for young people.
"More and more people are looking to emigrate, and we're fighting to make Ireland a home for young people again, because at this point it doesn't seem that way. Students have been let down for years by successive governments' policies," she said.
Henry said there will be further actions taken by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to "keep building on this momentum".
"Two years ago (the walkout) just happened, and then it was dropped, and it wasn't talked about again. So we're making sure this year that we're constantly at the government about different things."
One of the key asks in the USI's manifesto is for a general election to be called immediately. Henry said this is because students have been repeatedly let down by the government.
"We're fed up, and we want to see a change that really benefits young people," she said,
General election candidates looking to win the votes of young people should look at the USI general election manifesto and "actually take the things from it and work that into their own and making sure that this happens if they get elected," she said.
The main asks in the USI Student Manifesto are:
- Publish a new strategic plan for student accommodation and commit to providing the number of students' beds needed to fill the shortfall;
- Make the required legislative changes needed to allow Technological Universities borrow money to build and purchase student accommodation;
- Introduce free public transport for all students;
- Abolish third-level fees, including at postgraduate level, to provide equal access to education and reduce the financial barriers;
- Establish a minimum stipend of €28,000 for all PhD students;
- Decriminalise recreational drugs for personal use;
- Provide core multi-annual funding for student mental health services to increase the counsellor to student ratio to 1:1,000;
- Increase the percentage of Irish-language courses at third level to five per cent within the next five years, to ensure the success of the 2030 goal of 20 per cent of the public sector working through Irish.
