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STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONS HAVE been organised around the country today and the Union of Students Ireland is seeking to put additional pressure on the Governemnt by mobilising a voting block of 50,000 students by the local and European elections next year.
The demonstrations will take place in Dublin, Cork and Sligo against potential cuts to the maintenance grant in the upcoming budget.
USI President Joe O’Connor said that the union have begun voter registration drives in campuses across the country are “ready to demonstrate their electoral power” in this week’s double referedum. The USI is calling for a ‘No’ vote in the Seanad referendum.
The registration drives are both adding students to electoral register and placing those already registered on a new database that allows the USI contact them directly about the the union’s political positions.
O’Connor says that they so far have 5,000 students on the register and hope to increase that figure to 10,000 before the end of the week when they will communicate their position.
The new register will also provide information to students based on their specific college and also by their constituency, allowing them to directly link students to their local representatives says O’Connor:
Obviously this is a much longer term project. If we reach our target even for this year of 50,000 that will be on average a thousand votes in each constituency around the country. So in terms of swinging elections, especially for the last seat, you’re talking a few hundred votes so certainly we feel we can have an influence and can radically effect the results of any referendum or election.
Today’s protests will begin at 1pm at UCC, 1.30pm at Sligo IT and 4pm at Molesworth Street in Dublin.
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How do they get away with selling rotten fruit n veg?
Biggest eyesore of a street in the country.
@Fergus Fring: What ,what Fergus. One would want to pull one’s neck out.
@The Viking: It’s hideous. Cheap tat, cash for gold, second hand electronics shops and the street itself is constantly littered from street traders…
Next time you walk down it, take a look at these buildings with ‘historical significance’. Most of them have visible concrete blocks behind the windows on the second floor. Obviously no one living there because they’re so derelict and decrepit.
The street should be leveled and regenerated.
Quite a few negative comments on here. A bustling lively market is an asset to a city, an facility for shoppers and an attraction to tourists and in fact Dublin Tourism promotes the market but the reality must be disappointing to visitors. The market is being deliberately run down in order to facilitate the huge shopping centre plan — what some of the “level it and redevelop it” brigade no doubt would like — which is what most people do NOT want (and the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign have the signatures to prove it).
Most of the street traders on Moore Street are fourth generation — one or two are fifth. The Council does not supply water, heating or light, only the meagre shelter of the stands. As Mary Kelly noted, no toilets either. They have a hard life and as Marie Cullen said, their children would not want it. But others might. However Dublin City Council will not issue any new licenses.
The small business shopkeepers also struggle, particularly those from the junction with Henry Place going north.
The Council provided large bins along the street and also street cleaning teams go up and down regularly (their depot is in Nos. 24/25). Recently they removed most of the bins and of course, cardboard boxes and paper do pile up and also blow along.
The buildings are deteriorating because the property speculator is waiting to demolish them (all except Nos.14-17, which are owned by the State).
An upgraded market and a walk-through historical experience in the upper floors would boost the area enormously. Kilmainham Jail, which the State was going to demolish until a community group began to renovate it, now attracts so many paying visitors that one needs to book or to check on line for a free space to chance turning up. That site requires a bus journey whereas Moore Street is right in the City Centre. There is a lot to attract visitors from other parts of Ireland and from abroad (who rate culture and history much higher than shopping in all surveys): a site where an actual battle took place, where the HQ of the Rising was relocated for two days, where 150 men and women fought the last days of a rising against the largest empire the world has seen and against the butchery of World War and where at last they surrendered. A street and lane-ways where civilians and Volunteers were shot down and where no less than five of the seven signatories of the Proclamation spent their last days of freedom.
Conserving and regenerating the Moore Street Quarter could also contribute to the regeneration of the north city centre as a whole, especially at night. Shopping centres might look busy in the day but at night they are wastelands.
I fully agree that the street should be leveled and regenerated.
Alas the State would have to pay compensation to the large number of illegal cigarette/tobacco vendors. Judging by the amount of sellers and the brisk trade they do, the compensation would run into the €millions.
The law is an ass:
It is hard to believe you can bury your head in the sand regarding the cigarette and tobacco sales that are costing the state and me the taxpayer billions over the years.
have your say