It's been something of a heady year in UCD, sometimes it feels like everything has happened so fast that a year has passed in a month.  Then at other times it seems that those of us active in UCD are leaving this year with the experiences and memories of two years.  It is difficult to have anything resembling an accurate mental chronology of it in my head. There exists just some vague collage of activity and the ensuing ups and downs.  Perhaps one of the lessons to draw from this is the need to archive and preserve what is happening around us, not out of any sense of egotism or over estimation of our own importance, but because of the need to pass on a legacy of struggle to future activists, no matter how big or insignificant the success or failure, a repository of method and struggle can only advance change in the future, as others look back and glean the successes we have achieved and avoid the pitfalls that captured us, applying what they can and innovating and creating new methods to suit their own situation.

The next time you receive official documentation from your college in regards free fees, please note the manner in which 'free' is enclosed in quotation marks.  If bureaucracy can afford a sense of sarcasm when dealing with the issue, then its about time we realise, students have had the piss taken out of us for years. The government bureaucracy itself can recognise the fallacy of free education and we do very little to address the dichotomy between ideal and real which effects each and every one of us.   So, when the 69% increase in registration fees was announced in July, none of us should have been surprised.  GATS had long been swimming around with the rest of those acronyms which make up the activists alphabet soup of IMF, WTO, WEF and so on, but the practical significance of these letters had yet to be realised.

The world's leaders have decided that it is business and not citizens which will dictate the future of public services.  The World Trade Organization's General Agreement On Trade In  Services (GATS) wants the government to surrender public services to a private sector where the sole concern is the creaming off of profit with scant regard for the needs of students and the tax payer.

The EU commission describes GATS as 'first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business'.  Business Lobbyists use the disturbing argument that 'schools will respond better to paying customers like any other business'.  The US business lobby is highly critical of the 'culture of laziness which continues in the European education system…where students take liberties to pursue subjects not directly related to industry.  Instead they are pursuing subjects which have no practical application'.   The governments and the global business elite behind GATS want an education system intricately linked to the market and profit. 

The removal of "barriers" to trade in education services will lead to massive cutbacks in Higher Education. The GATS negotiations aim to remove barriers to free trade in order to give foreign competitors equal access to the Irish education `market'. Barriers cited by the WTO include "the existence of government monopolies and high subsidisation of local institutions".  Free fees for undergraduates and the grant are 'discriminatory payments' and face the axe under GATS.

Here in Ireland we have already fallen victim to the first step in this process with the rolling back of free fees introduced in 1996 and a massive 69% hike in registration. A year ago only the obscure Skilbeck report carried out by the Government's  'Higher Educational Authority' hinted at the direction education here was being pushed in.  Now in the space of  a few months, public discourse has been pushed by the government towards things that were previously unthinkable, the abolition of the grant, re-introduction of full tuition fees, increased links with industry and increased business funding of education.  Creating a closed education system, and one totally geared to meeting the needs of big business. In schools, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are already in action across Ireland, where taxpayers money is used to start up projects before handing them over to the private sector where profit is siphoned off. The end result of this would be a situation any public education that remained would be forced into constant competition with the private sector, leading to funding cutbacks and colleges about as accessible as Tony O'Reilly Hall is to UCD students.

In North America, especially in Canada, this neo-liberalism is being enthusiastically embraced by political elites as a panacea to the social ills of the country.  Ontario in particular  has slashed expenditure for health, education and social welfare, similar to the current Irish experience, all under the guise of fiscal discipline. The end result of this has been a dramatic increase in fees.  Some estimates place the cost of attending college at an average 20%-25% of the average family income, it must also be remembered that at the same time the average family income has not increased, while the cost of basic educational materials like texts and so on has increased drastically.  The inability of the family to subsidise education forces a majority of students to depend upon borrowed money particularly from government sponsored student loans.  Students there now graduate not only with degrees but with an average $30,000 debt, with few prospects for well paid employment forcing increasing numbers to declare personal bankruptcy as the only means to cope with the financial pressure.

When the ministers announcement came in July, the only response it received from our representatives in USI was a press statement of condemnation, it was this failure to respond and inadequacy which prompted the formation of the Campaign For Free Education. Many of the activists involved in the early stages of the campaign were hardened campus activists from UCD, basing much of their energies in efforts like Global Action, which had started in an effort to bring some of the momentum of the anti-capitalist movement abroad to UCD.  Since Genoa a massive attempt had been made by the Irish left to artificially import anti-capitalism to Ireland, and UCD was no different, on-campus campaigns focussed mostly on the abstract, with no real conception of the interaction between international issues and their manifestation at a local level, so despite constant arguments no real attempt had been made by campus activists to reach out to students.  Sometimes, this process simply requires the jettisoning of the activist vocabulary in favour of that of the everyday, it is impossible to defeat globalisation, who wants to smash the letters W,T and O, they are simply letters, an abstraction, but it is possible to defeat and rally students around the very real consequences of globalisation, such as fees and educational cutbacks.  In effect for activists in UCD, the rise in capitation fees prompted a serious consideration of the slogan 'think global and act local.'

It was implausible that we could rely upon USI and our own union to represent us, when USI did respond, it repeated the photo opportunities of three years ago, dumping a pile of ducks in the Liffey, these rare tokenistic acts were wholly insufficient.  One of the first mistakes we overcame was a reliance upon the existing left as  a temporary  basis and core for the campaign, despite several weeks of effort in terms of trying to establish a campaign in as many Dublin campuses as a possible, there was no real response from anybody outside of UCD, reconciled to this isolation, we began the process of organising in our own campus.  We embarked upon a sticker campaign to raise our profile before calling our first meeting which was attended by about 30 people. 

But the moment which decisively shaped the campaign came when rumours abounded that Noel Dempsey was opening the new arts annex in the first week, with about 12 hours to mobilise, a number of us ran around frantically on campus shouting at students through a mega phone, for some reason they responded.  The minister never showed up, but Brian Lenihan did and was duly received with a sit down blockade of the building by about 60 students, the cops were forced to drag many of us out of the way and the ensuing national and campus media coverage only raised the profile of the campaign. 

This first action was decisive for two reasons.  One, while in the past there had been attempts to organise impromptu protests they usually involved the left attempting to mobilise the left, here for the first time in years was a clear attempt to mobilise students not activists.  Also this was not just a demonstration of anger, it saw a return to the politics of direct action and confrontation which if anything defines the CFE.  Instead of creating spectacle and photo opportunities, the protest had an immediate goal which could be achieved to block Fianna Fails access to our campus in the exact same way in which they were blocking ours.  If they create financial barriers, then we could just as easily create physical ones  For the first few months the slogan 'they block our access, we block theirs' provided the impetus for the movement in the college. 

The next day USI with several members of the CEF occupied the department of education, those of us who occupied from UCD did so because we believed Bertie Ahearn was visiting UCD the same day and protests on campus were being organised, we hoped simultaneous protests in UCD and the occupation would provide impetus to other student actions elsewhere, unfortunately, the USI occupation despite its success in terms of creating a media spectacle, did little to mobilise and empower students. 

The months to come would see larger on campus demonstrations, including two days of protest where a motorway outside UCD was blockaded after more than  250 students had marched through all the faculty buildings, instead of alienating support as many argued it simply garnered support.  The following day more than 300 gathered in an impromptu blockade of the education minister in the Vet Building through a combination of sit downs and the erection of barricades.  An opinion poll carried out by the Colleg Tribune saw 76% of students support the CFE, while 90% opposed fees, all at a time where our union even refused to take a position on fees. 

There were two other organised days of action on campus including lecture boycotts, marches on administration demanding a retraction of their support for fees, an occupation of the department of finance and numerous impromptu protests blockading government representatives from coming into Society organised debates and an occupation of the department of transport immediately after a USI demo. 

Early in the year we also used the class rep elections as a platform for our ideas on campus, seeing all of the 22 who stood on A platform of free education, collective mass action against fees and reclaiming the students' union being elected.  The last action CFE engaged in was at USI's demo in February  where we distributed a leaflet critiquing the manner in which USI were fighting back, putting forward our own agenda of direct action  and successfully organising grass roots direct action in the form of a sit down in front of the Dail.  The CFE also successfully fought and won a referendum for disaffiliation from USI by over 80%.  After years of Fianna Fail domination, just last week three CFE activists were elected in a landslide victory in the union sabbatical elections.

The CFE was consciously set up with the immediate aim of mobilising students and involving them collectively in building mass resistance to not just a rise in registration fees, but against educational inequality. In terms of public discourse, the issue facing the student movement at the moment is not the 69% increase, this is just a symptom of a wider problem.  The government has long since shifted debate, it has covered itself in the language of social inclusion, a stance which has contributed to the idea of students as some selfish middle class elite out to safe guard our own privileged existence in campuses which remain no go areas for a vast majority of young people.

For this reason activism cannot and must not exist in a vacuum.  In order for the activist strategy to foster change it must exist outside the actual event.  What we are fighting for must be bigger than what we place ourselves in immediate opposition to, this means realising what the whole picture is before focussing on the smaller.  Approaching things from the bottom up, instead of seeking to chip away at the symptoms. 

Students Unions are dependent upon the college administration to collect their dues and there have been cases where universities have silenced radical unions by simply refusing to do this.  Often unions are expected to provide answers to the problems of the college authorities.  There role is wrought with contradictions, currently they mainly see their role as 'representing the views' suggesting these student leaders do not have to combat the politically problematic issues faced by students, but simply to repeat them.

In addition to the political function of the unions, they fill the role of service provider on campus, further requiring co-operation and a cordial relationship with the authorities which limits a real ability to fight for change.  The role of the union as an agent of social change becomes undermined, as its attempts to tackle on campus problems such as food prices is limited to providing alternative food outlets which enter into competition with those businesses the college has allowed on campus, the logic is that free market economics will drive the price of food on campus down.  While the setting up of food co-ops such as that in Trinity can provide cheap and affordable food and play a role in a combative strategy against the price of food elsewhere, instead we see the union invite franchises into the campus, in UCD the student bar now hosts a Cafe Kylemore, these ventures still operate as bodies seeking to maximise profits and do little to combat the problems on campus.

Radical student unions cannot exist where there is no radical student body.  To move towards an activist based student union willing to take stands for students, rather than remaining neutral, making finances available to grass roots initiatives-those running for office will have to come from a student movement which does not wholly exist here yet.  Our job as students is to create such a movement here.