Dublin Institute of Technology's students' union has asked students to prepare to strike early next year unless demands for better amenities at the college are met by Government.

The overall students' union president at DIT, Sarah McGovern, told The Irish Times that though a site at Grangegorman had been earmarked for DIT five years ago to enable its expansion, Government inaction had stymied development.

"The issue of a lack of facilities at the campus has been around since I started college at DIT," she said. "But Government departments keep passing our application over to another department and nothing gets done."

The union has discussed the issue at several recent council meetings and has initiated a poster campaign highlighting the issue. McGovern has also written to the Taoiseach and nearly 150 TDsail.

"It's just not fair that our students, who pay the same capitation fee as any other college, don't have the same access to amenities and sports facilities. DCU has something like five hurling pitches, UCD has more than 20 playing fields and all we have is a 20-metre swimming pool and a small weights room," she said.

In reply to a question by Senator Joe Costello on November 18th, the Minister for Education, Micheal Martin, said the Department was "actively considering the purchase" of the Grangegorman site for DIT. However, he added, this would obviously be "in the context of the annual estimates over the next number of years and possibly in the context of public-private partnership".

Initially, the union had planned to start strike action sometime in December, but after consulting students this was put off due to exam pressures for third- and fourth-year students.

However the union plans some high-profile stunts for next year. McGovern says these will not be announced until closer to the event. "Until then we will keep pushing our TDs to act for us."