STUDENTS DO IT DUB-STYLE

A 40,000 strong student protest against education cuts and increases in student fees ended in brutal clashes with the Gardai after an attempt to occupy the Department of Finance in Dublin on Wednesday (3rd). The protest was the largest student mobilisation in a generation as over 200 busloads descended on the capital from all over Ireland.

In what had been a largely peaceful march, with placards waving such messages as ‘Pay my fees or pay my dole’, things heated up when a 1000-strong breakaway group got closer to the Dail - the Irish parliament - chucking eggs and bottles. At around 2.30pm, around 50 students pushed past the Gardai into the Department of Finance building and staged a sit-in.

Both the students in the building and the several hundred outside were then subjected to the Gardai in full-on riot mode. Baton-happy cops began attacking protesters, some of whom were trampled and kicked by police horses and dragged by their hair.

Despite even the likes of the Belfast Telegraph taking a sympathetic line to the day’s events, the two-faced Union of Students in Ireland (USI) distanced itself from the occupiers and appeared to be siding with police. In a statement the Union claimed to be “saddened by the actions of a small minority”, who resorted to “anti-social behaviour”. All this came after the president of the USI had addressed the march saying “the sleeping giant that is the student movement has been awoken.”

He didn’t know how right he was.

* See www.indymedia.ie