More comments from Transition Year students who have won a week's work placement in The Irish Times. To join them, send us a 200-word piece on a media-related topic.Celene O'Shaughnessy, Lucan Community College, Co Dublin
What does the presidential campaign mean to the youth of Ireland? Very little, as far as I can gather. How can young people be in touch with political issues when this country is notorious for politicians hardly having time to touch down? Let's hope that the next President will have cleared all the skeletons in their closet before they hang up their clothes in Aras an Uachtarain. What interest would young people have in a political system that is built on bribery and cat-fights? The idealistic figure of De Valera would turn in his grave.
Clodagh Moynan, Lucan Community College, Co Dublin
Generation after generation, there has always been the fashionable look for each period. At the moment we are in the period of the "three stripes" and, of course, Nike. Individuals are hard to find among teenagers today, because being cool has always been a brighter prospect. So what the price of being cool? £40? £50?
Shakespeare once said: "Nothing comes from nothing." So where do we get our three stripes? They are being made by children for pennies in countries like Indonesia - that's the price that's paid, that's what a human life is worth these days. So every time the three stripes are worn, it's a message saying we want to destroy individuality and that we support child labour. Is that the message we want to send?
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