A massive demonstration against education cuts organised by the teachers unions saw over 60,000 teachers, parents and students take to the streets of Dublin today. Around 100,000 have now demonstrated around the country to oppose the vicious cutbacks 25,000 in Cork, 8,000 in both Donegal and Galway and 3,000 in Tullamore, on top of todays protest. There is widespread anger against the cutbacks which will result in Ireland having the highest pupil/teacher ratio in Europe and a diminishing of the quality of education young people receive.
The Socialist Partys material was very well received. 5,000 leaflets were distributed, over 250 papers were sold and a number of people indicated they were interested in joining the party. Socialist Youth organised a group of secondary school students on the protest and met many others who were interested in being involved in a school students campaign against the cuts.
The key thrust of our intervention was arguing that todays demonstration was an important step that must be followed up by the building of a strong campaign. We advocated the establishment of local action groups of students, parents and teachers to resist the cuts. We also called for the trade union movement to organise a national work stoppage to defeat all the budget cuts.