The president of the Union of Students in Ireland, Colm Jordan, leaves office this week. It was, he says, an extraordinary year dominated by the battle against college fees
'It was just before midnight on a hot August night when I got a text message telling me the Sunday papers were running a story about the Minister for Education hinting that fees may be introduced.
A month earlier, the Minister had announced a colossal 69 per cent increase in the capitation fee. USI had been trashing the Minister for this savage increase. At the time, I believed that the mention of fees was no more than a kite-flying exercise. How wrong I was.
The Irish Times headline on September 24th, 2002, changed everything. It pointed out that the Minister wished fees to return "for those who can afford it". Noel Dempsey was serious; he wanted to turn the clock back and bring back fees.
Alarm bells rang in USI's Ceann Áras. Late that evening myself and the union's deputy president, Noel Hogan, were discussing how to counter the Minister. In the previous two months, we had called a press conference, held photo stunts, chained ourselves to Government Buildings and met with the Minister to put forward our case. What was left for us to do? We were not a trade union so we could not withdraw labour, we were not a big business so we could not withdraw investment. All that was left was protest - but it had to have impact. We decided to occupy the Department of Education's boardroom the following morning.
We had very grave concerns about this course of action. Would public opinion go against us? Would those involved be arrested? Would the media treat it as a childish prank? Would our member students' unions support this action? We need not have worried. Almost 99 per cent of the media coverage was positive, including editorials. Students came in their hundreds to support those inside and we had sent a clear message to the Government - you can have one front page on Tuesday, but we will have three on Thursday!
It was important for us to try and argue our case in the court of public opinion, so we embarked on a nationwide series of protests. The myth of the apathetic student was laid to rest when one in three of the States' 130,000 students took to the streets.
The eternal debate in the student movement is whether to lobby or protest. Both Noel and I believed this argument to be folly. It is never a case of one or the other, but both. With this in mind, we asked for and got a debate in the Dáil - thanks to the Labour Party - the first one since 1998 on student financial support. We also gave a submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Science. The next step was to hold a mass lobby of the Oireachtas.
This was a totally new departure for the student movement in the Republic. The idea was to get every member of the Oireachtas into one room in front of a student from their own constituency, and let the student put forward his/her case. This was to be a turning point in the fees debate.The reaction from TDs was very positive, with a 50 per cent turn-out. One condescending TD thanked us and pointed out that days like this were more helpful then protests on the streets of his home city. I wondered if he would have met with us if we hadn't been on the streets?
I was taken aback, however, by some of the Government TDs. Some disagreed totally with the idea of universal access, so I put it to them that they had signed-up to this principle when they agreed to give medical cards to all over a certain age. They simply brushed that aside saying: "Well, I was against that, you see". Large numbers came back with this response. It was then I realised where the real apathy lay in Irish society.
After two more months of hard campaigning, on the morning of Sunday, 25th May, I turned on my radio. The Minister was holding a press conference in an hour's time. I jumped out of bed and raced down to Government Buildings. I was worried about what Minister Dempsey was going to say. The Friday before, I had held a press conference which was widely covered. Was he going to react? The next 30 minutes answered all my questions and indeed implemented a lot of our union's policy. The grant was increased and the number of students receiving the grant increased. There was also to be no return to fees.
The relief was immense. I had vowed months beforehand that fees would not return on my watch. The political commentators gave the victory to everyone but the student movement. For ourselves,we were happy to get the result without the recognition. What more can one ask?
