It wasn't so much the number of the demonstrators at last Wednesday's USI protest that was so striking, it was the noise they made. A cacophony of air horns, car horns, duck horns, whistles and drums (John Bonham of Led Zeppelin would have been proud of the USI drummer who pounded out a rhythm all the way down O'Connell street) echoed of the walls of Mountjoy Square from 1 p.m. onwards and only stopped when the march ended outside the Dail almost two hours later. The parade's organisers had promised 5,000 people and it was therefore something of a surprise to see this amount exceeded by what seemed to be a couple of thousand.
The level of organisation on show was very impressive. Everywhere you looked there were "on message" dayglow placards expressing support for one or other of USI's by now familiar three main demands: abolition of capitation charges, raising maintenance grants to the level of social welfare and a large investment in purpose-built student housing.
Although tightly organised, the parade was far from soulless. At Mountjoy Square a number of colleges made dramatic entrances, running screaming into the crowd like so many samurai from the now-defunct Murphy's ad campaign. DCU were particularly well represented in Braveheart fashion complete with tartan, blue faces and axes. "I just hope they don't do a moon when we get to the Dail," quipped one sabbatical officer.
The parade wound its way through the unsuspecting streets of the capital, making noise and generally trying to get itself noticed (how much the call of "What do we want? More money!" impressed passers-by is a moot point) until it came to a halt on Molesworth Street opposite Leinster House for the speeches - which were, to say the least, militant.
USI president Philip Madden said: "The talking stops here and the investment starts now. With a £6 billion surplus the time for investment is now."
Bearing in mind the economic situation, Peter O'Reilly of Sligo IT said he would like to thank Bertie Ahern for the 90p increase in his grant.
Clifford Reid of Carlow IT urged those present to go back and urge their local councillors to put pressure on TDs. "We are going to have to change things by getting in there ourselves," he said.
In a speech full of feeling (and more than the odd expletive), DCU union president Daibhi O'Donnabhain said that students understood that the Government was doing well on the economy and said that students would ensure the economic future was prosperous. "But how can they do that if they have no f***ing houses to live in? Rents last summer went up 20 per cent and grants went up just over 2 per cent," he said.
SIPTU president Des Geraghty was the guest speaker of the day. He said that not since 1968 had the demands of students been at one with society, and commended USI for "rebuilding the unity among students that they so badly need". Attacking the capitation charge as a back door to charging for education, Geraghty said: "We won't have a return to the bad old days when only the rich had access to third-level education."
Geraghty rounded off by saying that the demand for maintenance grants to be in line with social welfare was "modest indeed. Nobody is demanding to be in line with social welfare because we consider it to be inadequate."
A busy day for USI all round then, but despite the promises from parade organiser Julian de Spainn that "the work starts tomorrow", it is clearly still uphill all the way.
