What a Year!

 

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where you were when this academic year started. George W. Bush was stuck between a War on Terrorism to capture Osama Bin Laden and a War on Iraq trying to kill one of eleven Saddam Husseins. Tony Blair was caught between a rock and a hard place with ministers resigning and having to rely on the Conservative vote to get his policies through. At home, one of the few men of principle in government (and the only in Fíanna Fáil), Noel Dempsey, continued his campaign to bring back fees. Students were shocked to discover at the beginning of this year that full fees would be reintroduced. The year was spent writing polite letters to all corners of the Department of Education urging them not to bring fees back. When Dempsey appeared on campus shortly after announcing this shocking measure, everyone stayed away from him (and in bed) lest we anger the mighty education god and ruin the rapport of submission that had been carefully cultivated. Soon after, students took to the streets in protest, the like of which hadn’t been seen for - oh at least five years. Hundreds were on the streets in Dublin, and some of them were even protesting students (although it’s hard to be sure as they were also shopping).

 

USI (a strange acronym for Waste of Time and Money) were up in arms. They let loose about ninety rubber ducks in the Liffey - that’ll show the bastards! Two students chained themselves to a railing outside the Department of Education. They would have frozen to death had a kind old lady not noticed them and got help in time, some days later.

 

The various Students’ Unions were banding together in a camaraderie not seen since the Civil War. They drew up posters, flyers, t-shirts and any other form of non-interventionist, passive action they could think of. And when all their measures were easily ignored, Colm Jordan (President of USI) appeared on Questions and Answers as comic relief.

 

It looked as if it was inevitable that fees would be introduced again. For people whose parents’ incomes reached into the hundreds of thousands of euro. They might also adopt a loan scheme akin to the Australian model (Holly Valance?). It was our darkest hour, but then a light came from the unlikeliest quarter. No, not from Gandalf in the East, but from back-benchers and the PD’s.

 

Eventually the students had their day. Noel Dempsey backed down on the fees issue. Not because of protests or abuse or the threat of apathetic non-voting students not voting; it was because Mary Harney and many back-benchers in Fianna Fail were so against the idea that it was withdrawn. One political u-turn by Dempsey, and many slaps on the back and kudos to all who’d campaigned against fees in the first place (although they didn’t know how they’d done it).

 

Laziness, apathy, discord and fear had all played their part. The government faced all that student organisations and campaigns could throw at them and laughed. Then they backed down. It was nothing short of a miracle

 

Peter O’Brien

(1^st Science)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keith Maye and Peter O’Brien admiring the new lamp-post in the Quad…